Black Diamonds
by millstone1005
Summary: [Complete] Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.
1. Making Contact

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

Author's Notes: The African-American student is an original character. This story is not a future fic. It takes place during season 1.

* * *

** Chapter 1 **

During Ryan's first week of school at Harbor High, he was busy dealing with Marissa and Luke, and trying out for soccer, and handling all of the drama associated with everything that happened that week.

But he wasn't too busy to notice another guy in his pre-calculus class with Mr. Schmidt who also seemed to be getting shunned by the other students in the class. The reason was obvious: he was black in an almost entirely white private prep school. Ryan guessed besides that, he was probably also new to the school. The double whammy. Ryan saw him at lunch several days that week. He was always eating alone. The only other student that Ryan saw the kid with all week was a younger black girl who looked to be his sister. He saw them walking together towards the parking lot after school one day.

Ryan sat by himself in pre-calc during that week. He didn't know anybody else in the class. Seth, for example, was taking regular calculus this year, having taken pre-calc last year. Ryan noticed that the black guy also sat by himself every day. He found it somewhat amusing that the entire week, the other students in the class avoided sitting at his table or the black kid's table until all of the other tables were full. At which point they were forced to sit at one of those two tables.

On the Monday of the second week of school, Ryan decided to make friends with this kid. Ryan knew what it was like to be new in a school where you didn't know anyone. Well, of course, Ryan knew a few people at Harbor and was friends with Seth and Marissa and Anna, but that was pretty much it. And he could always use a another friend.

So at the start of class, Ryan waited until the guy was sitting down in his usual place, then went over.

"Hey."

The kid looked up at Ryan, looking a little confused. "Hey."

"Mind if I sit here?" Ryan indicated the chair next to the kid.

The kid shrugged, so Ryan took that as a _yes_ and sat down.

"I'm Ryan."

"Sam."

As the class filled up with the rest of the students, Ryan leaned towards Sam and whispered, "Watch, we'll have this table to ourselves."

Sam gave Ryan a little smile and went back to getting his books and papers ready for class. As expected, the other students filled up the rest of the tables and Ryan and Sam were left by themselves. Right before class started, Ryan tried to catch Sam's eye to give him an _I told you so_ look, but Sam wasn't looking at him.

After class, Ryan wanted to invite Sam to join him for lunch, which they both had next, but Sam rushed off before Ryan got the chance. While he was eating with Seth and Anna, Ryan looked for Sam, wanting to invite him over, but unfortunately he didn't see him.

Ryan stopped on his way out to look for Sam one last time and spotted him eating alone in the corner. Seth was right behind him and almost ran into him.

"Dude, watch out."

"Sorry." Ryan's eyes didn't leave Sam.

Seth turned in the direction that Ryan was looking. "What _are_ you looking at?"

"Seth, do you know that guy over there?" Ryan pointed towards Sam.

"Who? You mean the black guy?"

"Yeah."

Seth didn't hesitate. "Nah. Must be new."

"He's in my pre-calc class. Says his name is Sam."

"You met him?"

"Yeah. I was thinking of asking him to eat lunch with us."

Seth looked back over at Sam. "Sure. I mean, why not?"

Ryan nodded at Seth, and they headed off to their respective classes.

The next day, Ryan again sat with Sam in pre-calc. Unfortunately, they didn't have any other classes together, other than lunch, which really doesn't count as a class. This time, Ryan sat down at his table without asking and was glad to see that Sam looked at him and gave him a little smile and a nod. Maybe Sam was getting a little more comfortable having Ryan sit with him. Ryan decided to ask about lunch now instead of waiting until the end of class.

"Hey, um..."

Sam looked over at Ryan.

"You have lunch right after this, right?" As if Ryan didn't know that already, but he needed something to break the ice.

"Yeah?" Sam sounded uncertain about why Ryan was asking.

"I was wondering if you would like to sit with me, you know, and my friends, at our table, uh, you know, if you want..."

Ryan groaned inwardly. He really wasn't so good with the words. He was trying to find a way to say it without sounding like he was asking Sam out on a date or something. But he also didn't want to scare him off by saying that there would be a whole group of people there that Sam didn't know.

Sam looked at Ryan for a long moment. Ryan wished he could read minds to know what Sam was thinking. "Your friends wouldn't mind?"

Ryan shook his head. "Nah. No way. They're cool."

Sam nodded, thoughtfully. "OK. Sure. Why not?"

"Great."

Mr. Schmidt started class at that point, preventing any further conversation.

* * *

During class, Sam snuck a glance at Ryan. They had the table to themselves again today, just like Ryan predicted yesterday. Sam expected that it would be this way all year.

Sam wasn't so sure what to make of Ryan. He was the first one who'd tried to make friends with him since school started last week. Sam himself wasn't going out of his way to try and make friends at this new school. He was content to go through school by himself. Although he had to admit, to himself at least, that having friends would be nice.

The fact that Ryan was white didn't bother him. After all, Harbor was like 99 percent white. OK, maybe that was a little bit of an exaggeration, but sometimes it seemed that way. And Sam was used to it anyway, having lived in Newport his entire life. He already wished sometimes that he'd stayed at Newport Union High. But he couldn't let his little sister Angela come here alone -- she was just a freshman.

Sam took another look at Ryan. He looked like he was concentrating on trying to follow what the teacher was saying.

Sam wasn't blind. He'd also seen Ryan sitting by himself in pre-calc, being avoided by the other students. So he wasn't really surprised when Ryan came over the previous day and started sitting at his table with him. He wondered what Ryan's story was. Well, maybe he'd find out at lunch. Sam hoped that there wasn't a large number of Ryan's friends there. He didn't really do well, meeting lots of people all at once.

Sam sighed and went back to trying to pay attention to the teacher.

Sam was glad when class finally ended. Mr. Schmidt could be pretty boring at times, already. Sam stood up and started packing up his stuff and saw Ryan doing the same thing. He saw Ryan look at him, take a deep breath, and say, "Ready?"

Sam picked up his bookbag and nodded at Ryan. "Let's go."

Sam followed Ryan out of the classroom and towards the cafeteria.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	2. Getting To Know You

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

Author's Notes: **elzed**: I had this story and this character in my head before **BonnieD**'s challenge over at TWoP, but her challenge encouraged me to write it down and share it with y'all.

* * *

** Chapter 2 **

Sam and Ryan got their lunches in the cafeteria and headed outside to the tables. Ryan stopped and looked around to see if any of the gang was there already and had snagged a table. He didn't see any of them.

Ryan turned to Sam. "Looks like we got here first. Come on. We usually sit over here."

Ryan led Sam to the area where he and Marissa and Seth and Anna, and sometimes Summer, usually sat. Of course, it wasn't always the four, or five, of them eating together. In fact, Ryan wasn't sure if all of them had eaten lunch together yet. It always seemed that one or two were missing for one reason or another. Today, Ryan knew that Seth was going to be there, and Marissa wasn't, and he wasn't sure about Anna.

Ryan found an empty table and sat down. Sam sat down across the table from him. They both started to eat. As he ate, Ryan tried to figure out how to start a conversation, since apparently Sam wasn't going to start one. Then he saw Seth approaching and was able to relax. He could just let Seth do the talking. Much easier.

Seth sat down at the table and held out his hand to Sam. "You must be Sam. Seth Cohen."

Sam shook Seth's hand. "Sam Reese."

Seth started the interrogation as he started to eat. "You're new here, right? Did you just move to Newport?"

Ryan smiled to himself and hid it by taking a bite of his cheeseburger. He could always rely on Seth to jump right in and start asking people questions. Of course, Ryan wanted to know the answers, too, but he didn't want to pry. Seth didn't care if he was prying. Gotta love him.

Sam didn't seem to mind the questions. "Uh, no. Actually, my family's lived in Newport for a long time."

"Yeah? Where'd you go to school before this?"

"Newport Union."

That got Ryan's attention. "Really? That's where I almost went, if I didn't get in here. How is it, you know, as a public school? It's got to be good, right? Being in Newport and all." A lot better than Chino Hills, at any rate...

"Yeah, it's one of the top public schools in California." Sam sat back and looked around. "Not as good as a private school like Harbor, of course."

Seth jumped on that. "Is that why you changed schools? Because Harbor's better?"

"No, not really. Well, kind of..."

Sam leaned forward and took a bite of his lunch. Ryan could see that Seth was jumping out of his skin, waiting for Sam to explain that.

"My sister, Angela, she's a freshman." Ryan nodded. That would be the girl that Ryan had seen Sam walking with. "She wanted to go here. Actually, Dr. Kim recruited her. She's really smart. Plus I guess Harbor, you know, wanted to do the diversity thing."

Sam shrugged and took another bite of his lunch, and drank some of his soda. Then he continued.

"So, she was all set to come, and she wanted to come, but she got a little scared, of being _here_..." Sam used both arms to gesture around, indicating he meant all of Harbor. "... all by herself. So my parents got this brilliant idea that I should go here too, with her. So I applied, and I got in, and here I am."

Sam took another bite of food, then looked up at Seth and Ryan. "What about you guys?"

* * *

Sam watched Ryan and Seth look at each other a little strangely. Ryan in particular looked a little uncomfortable at the question. Sam guessed that it might have something to do with why Ryan was being ignored by the other students in pre-calc. He hoped that he'd get to hear Ryan's story. He figured that he deserved it after telling Seth and Ryan his story.

Sam smiled to himself about that. He didn't usually talk so much, but there was something about this kid Seth that just encouraged a person to open up to him. Unlike his friend Ryan, who seemed to be as quiet as Sam usually was.

Sam watched with interest as Ryan turned away from Seth and looked down and picked at his food, but didn't eat.

Seth looked at Sam and started to talk. "Well... My history is pretty boring, actually. I've been living in Newport since first grade and going to private schools all along. Not much to tell."

Sam nodded. They both turned to Ryan, who was still looking down.

Seth spoke softly. "Ryan." Ryan looked up. "You don't have to --"

"Nah, it's cool." Ryan looked over at Sam. "It's not really a secret."

Now Sam was intrigued. When Ryan didn't say anything else, Sam looked at Seth. Seth cleared his throat and after a quick glance at Ryan, addressed Sam.

"Have you heard about 'the kid from Chino' yet?"

Sam could practically feel his mouth drop open. He looked at Ryan. Of course he'd heard the rumors about 'the kid from Chino'. Even as isolated as he was from the rest of the student body, he couldn't avoid it. But he never would have thought it was Ryan.

"You? You're the kid from Chino? Who steals cars and sets people's houses on fire? Wow... you... you're not exactly... what I was expecting."

Sam could see Ryan trying to fight a smile. At least he put Ryan into a better mood, although he wasn't exactly sure how he did it.

Ryan finally couldn't contain it anymore and broke out in a smile. "What were you expecting?"

"I..." Sam had to think. What _was_ he expecting? "I don't know. Not you, I can tell you that. You.. you look like a model or something. Like someone in an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog."

Ryan actually laughed softly at that. Then he turned thoughtful.

"You know what you said about _steals cars and sets people's houses on fire_?" Ryan turned to Seth. "That's exactly what Anna said. Word for word."

Sam asked, "Anna?"

Ryan turned back to Sam. "Anna Stern. A friend of ours. She's also new here. She just moved to Newport from Pittsburgh." Sam nodded.

Seth suggested, "They probably heard the same rumors."

"Yeah, sounds like." Ryan turned to Sam. "What exactly have you heard about me?"

When Sam hesitated, Ryan encouraged him. "I want to know what people are saying about me behind my back."

Sam could understand that. He nodded. "Yeah, OK."

Sam stopped to think. What exactly had he heard? "Um... OK... Well... I don't remember exactly. I try not to pay too much attention to these things. Let's see... There was something about someone getting shot by, like, you and a friend of yours. And... you like to set fires, in people's houses and stuff, if they piss you off. Something about a car theft ring... I don't know... Oh, and, you beat the crap out of anyone who gets in your way..."

At this point, Sam looked at Ryan and figured he should shut up now. He looked like he was getting a little pissed off. So did Seth. After a moment, Ryan took a deep breath and seemed to get his emotions under control.

"Do you want to know the truth?"

"Sure, of course."

"There was _one_ fire. It was an accident. It was in a house that was under construction. No one lived there. And there was _one_ car. My brother talked me into going with him when he stole it."

Seth continued the explanations. "And the shooting, it totally wasn't Ryan's fault. This guy -- that Ryan barely knew -- had this gun. Ryan jumped him to try and stop anyone from getting hurt. The gun went off by accident. A guy got shot in the arm. He's fine now."

Sam nodded. He'd have to think about all of this later to get it straight in his head.

They all went back to eating and finished their lunches in uncomfortable silence.

As they were getting up, Seth asked Ryan, "Are you coming home after soccer practice tonight or are you going to see Marissa?"

Ryan answered, "I'm coming home. Marissa's busy tonight."

Sam was confused at that exchange, and apparently he looked it, because Ryan gave him an explanation.

"I live with Seth's family."

"Oh, right, OK."

The three of them then went and got rid of their lunch trays and headed off to their separate afternoon classes.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	3. Cool And Not So Cool

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

Author's Notes:

(1) Thanks for all the reviews.

(2) My black family here (the Reese family) was inspired by the Walker family on _American Dreams_, and I have used their first names. This isn't really a crossover and they aren't really supposed to be the same characters. Sorry, no Meg.

* * *

** Chapter 3 **

When Ryan arrived at pre-calc on Wednesday morning, he wasn't sure if Sam would still want to sit with him, be friends with him, after the revelations -- and the tension -- at lunch yesterday. So he didn't automatically sit down next to Sam when he got to class. He approached Sam's table and waited to catch his eye. When he did, Ryan gestured at the free chair next to him and only sat down after Sam nodded.

"Sorry about yesterday."

"That's what I was going to say."

"Why? You didn't do anything to be sorry for. I asked you to tell me what you heard, and that's all you did. I shouldn't have gotten mad at you." Ryan paused. "Well... I wasn't really mad at _you_, I was just... _mad_."

Sam nodded. "I get it."

"So we're cool? You still want to be seen with me? Now that you know who I am?"

Sam smiled. "No, you're right, I can't hang out with you. I mean, I'd alienate all of my other friends."

Ryan smiled back, glad that they were still cool.

* * *

After classes were over for the day, Ryan headed out to soccer practice. As he was leaving the main campus, some shouting caught his attention. It didn't sound good. He quickened his pace to see what was going on. It was some water polo jackasses harassing a girl that Ryan recognized as Sam's sister. There were three of them, and they were blocking her path to the parking lot. She was hugging her books tightly in front of her and looked terrified.

Ryan knew, he just _knew_, when he made friends with Sam that he'd end up in a fight sooner or later. He just didn't think it would be this soon. Ryan paused briefly. They were still on school grounds, and he really couldn't afford to get into a fight at school, especially since he was already in some trouble over his illegal tackle of Luke at soccer practice last week. And Sandy would be so disappointed in him after he'd lectured him and reminded him what was at stake if he got into too much trouble: he could lose his place at the Cohens'.

Ryan sighed. Why did this always have to have to happen to him? Having to come to the rescue of some damsel in distress? But -- he couldn't let Sam's sister (whose name he couldn't think of off the top of his head), he couldn't just stand by and let her get hurt. He had to go over there. Maybe, just maybe, he could avoid a fight. Or he could just refuse to throw any punches. OK, he'd probably get his ass kicked that way, but better him than a gangly 14-year-old Newport girl. So Ryan rushed over.

As Ryan got close, he shouted, "Hey! Leave her alone!"

Ryan pulled up next to Sam's sister, facing the water polo guys. They definitely recognized him and started to laugh evilly. OK, maybe not exactly _evilly_, but it wasn't a very nice laugh, either.

The one who seemed to be the leader spoke first. "Well, well, well. If it isn't the little bastard from Chino." He gestured at the girl. "Who's this? Your little bitch from the 'hood'?"

His friends both thought that was very funny. Ryan didn't. He felt himself getting angry and wanting to kick this guy's ass. But he forced himself to remain calm and tried to ignore the words, saying to himself, _Words. They're just words._

Ryan turned towards Sam's sister -- Angela, that's right, that was her name. She was just standing there, staring at him. He reached out towards her, putting his arm between her and the jerks. He didn't actually touch her, though. He was trying to usher her in the opposite direction from them.

He told her, quietly but urgently, "Come on. Let's go."

She didn't move. She seemed to be frozen to the spot.

The water polo players laughed again. "What's the matter? Trouble in paradise?"

Ryan was prepared to ignore those words, too, but they were accompanied by a shove in the shoulder. Ryan wasn't expecting it, not right then, not right in that way. He hadn't braced himself and so got knocked to the side and almost fell right into Angela. That did it. Now he was pissed. Ryan turned on the guy and got ready to fight.

* * *

Sam was a little late meeting his sister in the student parking lot to drive home from school. He was hurrying down the steps when he saw Ryan side-by-side with Angela, facing three big guys wearing maroon t-shirts that said "Harbor water polo" with an outline of a water polo ball. He knew these guys were bad news, and could see that something bad was going down. Angela looked scared and Ryan looked pissed. Sam hurried even faster to get there and help before something worse happened.

Sam came running up and joined Ryan in facing off the water polo players, standing partially in front of his sister.

The water polo guys didn't look fazed by the appearance of an additional adversary. Sam knew that he and Ryan weren't exactly intimidating figures. They were roughly the same height and build. But he knew from the rumors, which Ryan and Seth didn't dispute yesterday, that Ryan was a fighter. And he himself was pretty athletic. So Sam figured, if necessary, the two of them could hold these guys off long enough for him and Ryan and Angela to get out of there.

As Sam expected, the water polo guys didn't stay quiet. The taunting began right away. "Oooh, you've got a little competition, Chino."

Sam didn't really understand that comment, so he ignored it. But he did need to protect Angela. "Stay away from my sister!"

"Or what, shrimp?"

Sam could see Ryan tense up even further beside him. He figured that Ryan knew a fight was coming, so Sam got ready for a fight himself. They all stood there tense for several long moments. Nobody said anything. Nobody did anything. Finally, one of the water polo players, one who hadn't said anything since Sam got there, spoke up.

"Brad, let's just go. We're going to be late for practice."

The leader, who was apparently Brad, looked back at him and Ryan and Angela, and sneared, "We'll finish this later, geeks."

Then the three water polo players sauntered off.

Sam breathed a sigh of relief. He really didn't want to fight. His parents were adamantly against it, if it could be in any way avoided. He'd be in trouble if he came home with scraped and bruised knuckles, unless he could convince them that he had no other choice. Although they didn't like it, they understood and accepted that sometimes you just had to defend yourself, or the people you loved, with your fists. But they always emphasized that violence should be the absolute last resort.

Sam turned around to check on Angela. She didn't look hurt. "Angela, are you OK?"

She didn't answer. She was staring at Ryan with a look of adoration on her face. Oh, no. He knew that look. She's got a crush on Ryan. "Angie! Are you all right? Did they hurt you?"

Angela glared at her brother. "I told you, never call me 'Angie'!"

Sam smiled. It worked, didn't it? Now that he had her attention, he repeated, "Are you all right?"

She took a deep breath. "Yeah, yeah, I'm OK. They just scared me. They didn't hurt me. Thanks to... um..." She turned to Ryan.

Sam turned towards Ryan, too. "Ryan, thanks, man, for helping my sister. I appreciate it." Sam clasped Ryan's hand in the approved teenage guy way.

"No problem."

Angela said, dreamily, "Ryan --"

Sam figured that they hadn't been properly introduced. "Oh, um, yeah. Ryan, this is Angela. Ang, this is my friend Ryan... um...?"

"Atwood. Ryan Atwood."

Angela told Sam, excitedly, "Did you see what he did? It was _so_ cool! He came running over and told those three big guys to leave me alone!" She looked at Ryan adoringly again.

Ryan cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. "Um... yeah... I gotta get to practice myself..."

Ryan nodded to Sam and started to walk away, but Angela called after him. "What sport do you play?"

Ryan stopped and turned around. "Soccer."

"That's _so_ cool! I play soccer, too!" Sam gave her a look. "Well, I used to play. And I'm going to try out for the team here." Sam gave her another look. "I am too. I just haven't gotten around to it yet..."

Ryan said, hesitantly, "That's... uh... that's great... I gotta go."

Ryan turned and walked away. Sam watched Angela watch him go. She sighed, dreamily. "He's so cool."

* * *

To Be Continued 


	4. Soccer

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 4 **

A couple of days later, on Friday, Ryan and Sam were having lunch in the cafeteria. It was just the two of them today.

Sam had news. "Angela tried out for the junior varsity girls' soccer team and she made it."

Ryan nodded, absentmindedly, as he continued eating. "That's great."

"You know, don't you, that she only did it because of you."

Ryan looked at Sam, confused.

Sam laughed. "Didn't you notice? She totally has a crush on you, man. You're like her knight in shining armor. You play soccer, she plays soccer."

"But -- you came to protect her from those water polo jerks, too."

"Yeah, but I'm just her brother."

Ryan shook his head in disbelief, but he couldn't help but smile, too. It was cute -- a little girl with a crush on him. Although, wait, she's 14, not 4, hardly a little girl. Ryan could remember being 14 himself and getting it on with 14-year-old girls. And even when he was 15, or 16 before he left Chino, girls one or two years younger weren't too young for him.

Ryan scowled a little. Those 14-year-olds in Chino seemed so much older, more mature, than Sam's sister did. Must be the difference between Chino and Newport. Another difference between Chino and Newport.

"Ryan? Is something wrong?"

Ryan looked at Sam. "What? No. Just thinking."

Sam looked at Ryan for a moment, like he wanted to know what Ryan was thinking about, but didn't want to ask. Ryan really hoped that he wouldn't ask. He didn't want to tell his new friend that he was thinking about what it would be like to hook up with his baby sister. Not that Ryan hadn't done that sort of thing before... Luckily, it looked like Sam decided not to pursue it and he just continued with his story.

"So, yeah, you're basically all she's been able to talk about for the last couple days. She's been gushing about how cool you are, how you came from out of nowhere to defend her honor, crap like that. Which reminds me..."

Sam paused there, like he was reluctant to say what he was about to say. Ryan gave him a questioning look.

"Um... She was going on like this to our Mom and Dad, and mentioned that you were a friend of mine. So... um... they wanted to know what I knew about you."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Ryan sighed. "Let me guess. They told you that you couldn't hang out with me any more."

"No, no. They just want me to bring you home so they can meet you."

Ryan raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Sam added, quickly, "It's nothing personal. They want to get to know all our friends. They're like that, you know, kind of old-fashioned. But don't worry, they're just happy that I made a friend here."

Ryan kind of doubted that it would be that simple, but he just nodded. "Um... OK... Sure."

"Great. How about tonight?"

"I can't. I'm going with Marissa to help set up for this charity thing on Caleb's yacht that she's dragging me to tomorrow, with her mother, no less."

"Caleb?"

"Caleb Nichol. Seth's grandfather."

"Caleb Nichol? As in _the_ Caleb Nichol? Seth's his grandson?"

"Yup."

"Wow. I had no idea. I mean, it shouldn't really matter, but..."

Ryan smiled. "In Newport, money always matters."

Sam smiled back. "Yeah."

After a moment, Sam asked, "OK, so, how about next week?"

"Yeah, that should be OK. I don't know when, yet, though."

Sam teased, "Have to ask the girlfriend, huh?"

"You know it."

* * *

The next Monday, Sam and Ryan were talking before their pre-calc class started.

"About coming over to my house this week..." Sam's parents weren't pushing, yet, but Sam knew they would be soon, so he had to ask.

Ryan shook his head. "I still don't know when I'll be free."

Sam nodded, a little disappointed. He wondered if Ryan was reluctant to come to his house, meet his parents. He hoped it wasn't anything racial. Ryan didn't seem like the type and Sam had heard that Chino had a large minority population, so he figured that Ryan would be fine with it. But, of course, he could always be wrong.

"How's Angela doing in soccer?"

"Good, I guess. It's only been like two practices..."

Sam was a little surprised that Ryan was interested. Maybe he felt a little something for Angela. God, he hoped not. Not that there was anything wrong with that. It was just -- his friend and his little sister. Shudder. Plus, he was too old for her.

"Do you play?"

"I have. Hasn't everyone?"

Ryan gave Sam a little smile at that. "You know, there's an opening on the team. One of our players just went down for the season. His knee. If you want to, you could try out. But you'd have to do it like, today. The spot will probably get filled pretty quickly."

Sam looked at Ryan. He seemed awfully eager for Sam to join the team. Sam thought about it. He could imagine that Ryan was having a hard time with his teammates, being who he was. Ryan could probably use a friend on the team, someone to watch his back. And Sam didn't have an extracurricular activity, so...

"Um... Yeah... I could do that, but I have to ask my parents first. They were a little unhappy that Angela tried out without telling them."

"Oh. Maybe you could call them and ask?"

"Yeah... Yeah. I'll do it at lunch."

So that's what Sam did. At lunch, he used his cell phone to call his mother at work. She gave her permission, so Sam arranged with Ryan to meet up before soccer practice.

* * *

Ryan caught up with Sam after his last class of the day and they headed off to the gym. He was glad that Sam's parents had given him permission to join the team. Asking your parents before you did something, what a concept. He never had that with his mother, of course. And even Kirsten and Sandy didn't really require it, you know, other than for like an overnight trip or a concert or something special like that. He didn't even ask them before he applied for the job at the Crab Shack and they didn't seem to mind. Ryan was glad that the Cohens had a hands-off style. He wasn't sure if he could handle strict parenting after pretty much taking care of himself for years.

When they got to the gym, Ryan took Sam directly to the head soccer coach's office. Ryan was still pretty much in the coach's doghouse after the Luke incident and he still had one more game to go on his suspension. But Ryan was hoping that the coach wouldn't hold his problems against Sam.

When they got to the office, the door was closed, so Ryan knocked.

The coach yelled, "Come in!"

Ryan opened the door and walked in, followed closely by Sam.

"Coach?"

The coach looked up from whatever he was doing at his desk and said, impatiently, "What is it, Atwood?"

Ryan gestured in Sam's direction. "This is Sam Reese. He wants to try out for Millar's spot."

The coach raised his eyebrows and looked over at Sam. He seemed to study him closely and seemed to like what he saw.

"Reese, huh? OK, Atwood, go ahead and get him some practice clothes and bring him out to Coach Wallace for a tryout." Coach Wallace was the assistant coach.

The coach looked back down at the paperwork that he'd been working on, effectively dismissing Ryan and Sam. Ryan turned to Sam and ushered him out of the office and shut the door behind them. He started to lead Sam to where the extra practice clothes were kept.

"Huh."

"What?"

"He didn't even ask you any questions or anything. You don't suppose --"

"That he assumed I'm a good athlete because I'm black?"

"Well, yeah."

"Probably, but I still need to pass the tryout, right? I mean, if I suck, they won't just let me on the team because of the color of my skin, will they?"

Ryan laughed. "No. No way. They like winning too much."

Ryan got Sam some clothes, and socks, and cleats and they both went into the locker room and changed. They tried to ignore the looks and under-the-breath comments that they were getting from the other members of the team. Ryan had been getting this kind of treatment ever since he joined the team. If Sam passed the tryout, at least they would both have the company of someone else in the same boat.

Ryan took Sam out to the assistant coach then joined the rest of the team for their regular practice session. During practice, Ryan kept on eye on Sam's tryout over on the side. It looked like he was doing well. At least he looked like a good soccer player to Ryan.

After practice was over, Ryan caught up with Sam in the locker room. Sam had already been called into the head coach's office.

"How'd it go?"

"Good. I'm on the team."

Ryan smiled and gave Sam a high-five.

* * *

The next day before pre-calc, Sam broached the subject of meeting his parents again with Ryan. Last night, after telling them that he made the soccer team, they started pushing to have Ryan come over as soon as possible.

"Ryan, about meeting my parents -- now that we're teammates and we'll be spending more time together, they really want to meet you, soon."

"Tomorrow's good."

Sam was pleasantly surprised. "Yeah? You cleared it with Marissa?"

Ryan smiled. "Yeah. I have her permission. She's got a test on Thursday that she has to study for, so she's cut me loose for the day."

"Great. My parents will be pleased. And Angela will be in heaven. I'll bet even Maggie will like you."

"Who's Maggie?"

Sam smiled. "You'll see."

* * *

To Be Continued 


	5. The Black Diamonds

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 5 **

After soccer practice on Wednesday, Sam and Ryan headed out to the student parking lot to Sam's car to catch up with Angela and head over to the Reeses' house. Ryan had to smile when he saw the car. An SUV. A black one. It seemed like everyone in this town had an SUV. Sam and Ryan went ahead and got into the car to wait for Angela to finish her soccer practice.

"Now are you going to tell me who Maggie is?"

Sam smiled. "I told you, it's a surprise."

Angela came rushing over and climbed into the back seat of the SUV. Ryan turned around from the front seat to watch her. After closing the door and getting settled, she looked shyly at Ryan.

"Hey, Ryan."

"Hey, Angela."

Ryan turned back around when Sam started the car and pulled out of the parking space. Sam and Ryan exchanged a look. Angela was being silent in the back seat. From what Sam had told Ryan, that was unusual for her. It sounded to Ryan like she was similar to Seth: talkative. So he and Sam both knew what it was like to share a house with someone who just wouldn't shut up. It was a good thing that both of them were on the quiet side.

They had a pretty quiet ride to the Reese house. Angela told Sam a few things about school and soccer practice, but after each comment, she quickly became quiet again. Ryan guessed because she was shy in front of him. So Sam was right, she definitely had a crush. He hoped she would get over it soon. He didn't want her fawning all over him. Even though he was thinking the other day about what it would be like to hook up with her, there was no way that would happen. He wasn't really interested in her. Besides, he already had a girlfriend.

When they got to the house, it was obvious that it was the same kind as the Cohens' house. Ryan knew from his construction experience that developers used a certain set of house plans and reused them multiple times, with maybe some minor differences among them. They didn't build every house unique. So this one must be another Newport Group house. Ryan guessed that most of the houses in Newport Beach were probably built by The Newport Group.

When the three kids entered the house, Ryan heard a female voice, with a mild spanish accent, coming from the kitchen.

"Sam? Angela?"

Sam called back. "Yeah, it's us."

When they got to the kitchen, Ryan saw a latina housekeeper cooking dinner.

"Your mother called. She and your father are going to be a little late for dinner, so she says you two... er, three... can have a snack. A small one."

Sam headed for the refrigerator. "Thanks, Manuela. Is Maggie home?"

"Not yet." Manuela went back to her cooking.

So, Maggie wasn't the housekeeper and wasn't Sam's mother, and probably wasn't a dog or cat. Ryan was guessing at this point that Maggie was another sister.

Sam opened the fridge and addressed Ryan. "Something to drink? We have juice, ice tea, lemonade, milk, water..."

"Coke?"

Angela answered, "Our parents don't believe in soda or any kind of junk food. It totally sucks."

Ryan teased Sam, "But you have soda at lunch."

Angela answered again, "They say they know we'll have soda and stuff while we're out, so we don't need it at home, too."

"Ah." He turned to Sam. "I guess I'll have ice tea. Thanks."

Sam handed Ryan a bottle of ice tea and got one for himself. Angela reached around Sam and snagged herself an orange juice. Then she walked over to the housekeeper and started chatting animatedly to her about her day at school. Ryan smiled to himself. Can't keep a talkative person quiet for too long.

As Ryan opened up his ice tea and took a sip, he walked over to the french doors in the kitchen and looked out. The back yard was similar to the Cohens': the familiar infinity pool and very familiar pool house. But the Reeses' back yard didn't have steps, they weren't on the top of a hill, and they didn't have an ocean view.

Ryan turned around and saw the familiar den with fireplace. The Reeses also had a wide screen TV and Ryan saw the familiar joysticks for video games. The layout of the house was pretty much the same as the Cohens, but the decor was quite different. More traditional, with an African influence.

"Ryan, come on, man, up to my room." Ryan turned back to the kitchen to see Sam holding a plate of something.

Ryan followed Sam up to his room on the second floor. It was pretty much the equivalent of Seth's room, but with completely different decorations. Sam had a computer, but no TV in his room. Sam dropped his bookbag on the bed and sat down on the floor and put the plate of what turned out to be cheese and crackers in front of him. He started munching on them. Ryan followed suit.

After a short silence, when apparently neither of the boys knew what to say, Ryan figured that he'd follow Seth's example from lunch last week and just start asking questions. Sam didn't seem to mind it then.

"You said your family's lived in Newport for a long time?"

"Yeah, since before I was born. My grandparents -- my father's parents -- moved here when their business started to take off. I think they were like one of the first black families in Newport."

"That must have been rough."

"Yeah, from what they say it was, but it was the 1970s and everyone was all optimistic about integration and stuff."

"Mmmm." Ryan nodded. "And your father inherited your grandparents' business?"

"Yeah. He went to work for them right out of college. Actually, that's how my parents met. My mother also worked at the business. They love telling the story about how they met and fell in love, and all that crap." Sam rolled his eyes.

Sam and Ryan shared a smile about how parents, or guardians, can get all mushy when the kids wish they wouldn't.

"In fact, they just had their 20th anniversary."

"Wow, that's great."

"So, yeah, my father inherited the business. Both of my grandparents have passed away, and my father doesn't have any other brothers or sisters. Well, he had a sister but she died a long time ago when she was young."

"I'm sorry."

Sam shrugged. "That's OK. I never met her anyway."

They both took some time to munch cheese and crackers and drink their ice tea. Then it was Sam's turn.

"So what about you? Um.. I mean Seth's parents?"

Ryan smiled to himself. Sam was being discreet, like the well-brought-up boy he was, asking about the Cohens instead of the Atwoods.

"Yeah -- Sandy and Kirsten Cohen. Kirsten's from here. Her father, you remember, is Caleb Nichol. He owns the Newport Group. Kirsten works for him. Sandy's a different story. He grew up poor, in New York City, in the Bronx. He's jewish, in case you couldn't guess from the 'Cohen' part. He's a lawyer. He used to work in the public defender's office. That's how I met him."

The surprise on Sam's face reminded Ryan that he hadn't told this part of the story yet.

"Um, yeah... When I got arrested for the car, Sandy was appointed my lawyer. Then after my Mom kicked me out, Sandy and Kirsten took me in, so now I live with them. Well, there's more to the story, but that's the basics."

Sam nodded and went back to concentrating on eating. Ryan could tell that he was uncomfortable and didn't know what to say. That's one of the reasons why Ryan didn't like to talk about his past -- it made other people uncomfortable.

The boys were saved from their uncomfortable silence by Angela who came bounding into the room without knocking.

"Angela! Get out!"

"I just wanted to show Ryan Mom's necklace."

Angela continued into the room and plopped down on the floor next to Ryan and Sam. Ryan could see that she was holding a diamond necklace.

"You went into Mom's jewelry vault? She's going to kill you. Put it back, right now. She told you not to play with her expensive stuff."

Angela said, stubbornly, "Not before I show Ryan."

She turned to Ryan and handed him the necklace. He layed it out in both hands. It had a large background filled with small diamonds that was in a crescent shape along the necklace chain. In the longer central part, Ryan saw five black stones. He looked closer. They looked like diamonds that were black in color.

Angela told him, excitedly, "Isn't it way cool? My mother had it made special. Those are black diamonds. They represent the five of us. You know, our family? There used to just be four of them, but then when Maggie was born, they took out one of the regular diamonds and put in another black one."

Ah, huh. Maggie was another sister. A younger one.

Ryan looked up to see Angela looking at him expectantly. "Yeah. No. Yeah. It's cool. I didn't know there was such a thing as black diamonds."

Sam explained, "They're artificially colored. My Mom tried to explain it to me once. Something about a heat process or something. I don't remember."

Angela piped up, "I know!"

"Angela, Ryan doesn't care." Sam carefully took the diamond necklace out of Ryan's hands and gave it to Angela. "Put it back before Mom and Dad get home. Now."

Angela gave Ryan a smile, gave her big brother a scowl, and flounced out of the room. Ryan smiled to himself. If she was a little bit younger, he could imagine her sticking her tongue out at her brother instead.

"Sorry about that. Angela can get a little... overexcited."

"Nah, nah, it's OK."

Sam and Ryan went back to finishing off their ice tea and the cheese and crackers. Ryan was thinking about that necklace. It was pretty cool -- to care enough about your family to have them immortalized in black diamonds.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	6. The Reese Family

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

Author's Notes: OK -- apparently I wasn't clear and gave everybody the wrong impression. Sam is not a teen Dad. Maggie is not Sam's baby. Maggie is Sam and Angela's little sister, like I was trying to say in chapter 5. Sam left his old school for the reason that he told Ryan and Seth in chapter 2. I came up with this story long before Ryan was revealed to be a possible teenage father at the end of Season 1. In this chapter you get to meet Maggie, the little sister. I hope everyone is not all disappointed.

* * *

** Chapter 6 **

After they finished their snacks in Sam's bedroom, Sam and Ryan took the empty plate and their empty bottles of ice tea and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Sam put the plate in the dishwasher and rinsed out both bottles and put them into the recycle bin.

As they were leaving the kitchen, Ryan heard the little girl before he saw her. This could be none other than the famous Maggie. She was squealing and giggling. He finally layed eyes on her as they turned the corner. She was squirming on her big sister's lap on the couch in the den. It looked like Angela was tickling her.

Ryan wondered where she came from, since obviously Mr. and Mrs. Reese weren't home yet. They didn't for example pick her up at daycare on their way home. He guessed that maybe someone dropped her off while he and Sam were upstairs.

When Ryan and Sam came into sight, Maggie immediately jumped off of Angela's lap and ran over to her brother. "Sammy! Sammy! Sammy!"

Sam laughed and bent down to catch her. "There's my little munchkin!"

He picked her up and spun her around and tossed her in the air. She was laughing and squealing the entire time. Ryan couldn't help but smile. She was the cutest little thing, with her little pigtails flying out on either side of her head.

After a few minutes, Sam plopped himself down on the couch, breathing hard. He pulled his little sister onto his lap and turned her to face Ryan.

"Hey, munchkin, I've got someone for you to meet." He pointed to Ryan.

The girl looked at Ryan with her eyes wide. Sam looked over at Ryan as well. "Hey, man, sit down."

Ryan sat down in the chair next to the couch.

Sam looked back down at his sister. "That's my friend Ryan. Can you tell him _your_ name?"

"I'm _Maggie_!" She said in a very loud voice for such a little thing.

"And how old are you?"

She held up her hand with her pinky and two middle fingers up. "I'm _three_!"

Sam tickled her. "That's right, munchkin. Very good!" Maggie giggled.

With a little encouragement, Maggie wiggled off her brother's lap and went over to the chair and stopped in front of Ryan. She just looked at him. Ryan threw a confused look over at Sam.

"She wants you to play with her. You know, like I did."

Ryan looked at Maggie, then back at Sam. "I don't know..."

Angela encouraged him. "Go ahead. It'll be fun."

Ryan shrugged and stood up. He caught hold of Maggie under her arms, like Sam did, and spun her around. She squealed like before. Ryan smiled. Hey, this was pretty fun. He stopped and tossed her up in the air. More giggles and laughter. Ryan found after a few minutes of this, he was out of breath, too. He put Maggie down and dropped back down into the chair.

Angela came over and got Maggie from Ryan, giving him quick sidelong glances, then quickly looking away. Ryan sighed quietly. She still had that crush thing going.

Angela sat back down on the couch, with Maggie in her lap. She started to tickle her. Maggie giggled. "How about that, Maggie! Looks like you've got a new big brother!"

"Angela!"

Ryan didn't understand why Sam was yelling at Angela for that. He got his answer when Maggie looked over at him and started chanting, "My new big brother! My new big brother!"

Sam groaned. Ryan looked over at him. Sam explained, "She's never going to drop that now. She does that -- picks up on something someone says and doesn't let go of it. Watch, from now on, every time you come over, she's going to call you her brother."

Ryan nodded. He thought about what Sam said. _Every time you come over._ He smiled to himself. That sounded kind of nice, actually. He liked this family. Then he remembered that he hadn't met the parents yet and that sobered him up. He'd have to see how that went before he knew if he'd be coming back.

Ryan hung out with Sam and Angela in the den as they played with Maggie until their parents came home. During this time, the housekeeper Manuela left, telling Sam and Angela that the dinner was ready and warming in the oven.

Sam's parents arrived home together. Ryan wondered if Mrs. Reese still worked at her husband's family business. Probably.

When the teenagers heard the front door, they all got up. Ryan heard a deep male voice coming from the foyer.

"Where are my beautiful children?"

Maggie jumped up and ran down the hallway into her father's arms. "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

Ryan saw Mrs. Reese walking down the hallway towards the den ahead of her husband. They were both dressed in suits.

Sam's mother was a small woman, not much different in size from Summer. In contast to his wife, Mr. Reese was a fairly large man, not huge, not fat, but above average in height and looked to be in good physical shape for his age. Both of them looked older than the other parents that Ryan had seen in Newport. They looked closer to 50 than 40 and Mr. Reese looked like he was several years older than his wife.

When she got to the den, Mrs. Reese approached Ryan. She smiled at him. He found himself smiling back. She had a very nice smile. "You must be Ryan. I'm Gwen Reese. Nice to meet you."

Mr. Reese held out his hand to Ryan. "And I'm Henry Reese. I've heard a lot about you."

As Ryan shook Mr. Reese's hand, he tried to figure out whether there was any hidden meaning in his words. Or if they were supposed to be an insult, like when Julie Cooper said pretty much the same thing when they were introduced before the set up for casino night. But Mr. Reese was smiling, and didn't look like he was trying to insult Ryan, so he decided just to take the words at face value and smile back at the man.

* * *

As Sam's mother headed into the kitchen, she asked her teenage children, "Is the dinner ready yet?"

Angela answered, "Manuela left it warming in the oven."

"Great. Thank you, honey. Could you please get Maggie ready? And Sam, could you set the table?"

Angela took Maggie from her father, and Sam started to set the table. Sam's mother took the food out of the oven. Sam's father took off his jacket and tie and got to work moving the chairs around the table to make room for six.

Sam watched Ryan stand aside. He looked a little overwhelmed at all of the activity, but Sam could also see a little smile on his face. He was glad that Ryan was getting along so well with his family. Maggie liked him, Angela liked him -- OK, a little too much. She was still shamelessly flirting with him. Sam was relieved to see that Ryan didn't seem interested. Maybe this friendship thing would work out after all. He was beginning to be glad that his parents suggested he go to Harbor with Angela.

Sam's parents had already told him that they were going to approve him and Ryan being friends, but they hadn't wanted him to tell Ryan because they wanted to do it themselves. The plan was for Sam's Dad to talk to Ryan alone before dinner, then they could have a relaxing dinner. But, looking around, it didn't look like his father was planning on talking to Ryan right away.

Sam hurried to finish setting the table. When he was done, he went over to his father and pulled him aside. "Aren't you going to talk to Ryan now?"

"There's no time. The dinner's ready and we're all hungry. I'll do it after dinner."

"But -- he'll have to go through the entire dinner not knowing. Let me tell him now."

"No, Sam, I'm going to talk to him. After dinner." Sam knew when his father used that tone, it meant to stop arguing with him. So Sam gave up.

When the dinner was all ready to go, it was time to take a seat around the table. Sam's parents were at the ends and Maggie was in her special chair next to their mother. The other three spots were up for grabs for the three teens. Sam looked at Angela and knew what she was thinking. She wanted to be next to Ryan. Sam wanted to avoid that at all costs.

"Angela - why don't you sit next to Maggie? You know she likes it when you reach over and tickle her _neck_."

Angela glared at him. Sam knew that she caught his threat. _Stay away from Ryan or I'll tell Mom you got her necklace out._ It worked. she sat down next to Maggie, which left the two chairs on the other side of the table for Ryan and him.

So they all sat down and dug into their dinners. Sam's parents had promised that they wouldn't talk about anything that would make Ryan uncomfortable at dinner, like his past. So they fell into the normal family dinnertime smalltalk -- about their classes and soccer and so on.

Near the end of dinner, Sam's father let Ryan know about their nightly family dinner tradition. "Every night at dinner, we go around the table and each of us says one thing that was interesting or exciting or different that happened that day, or something that he or she learned that day. You don't have to participate if you don't want to, Ryan. It's your choice. All right?"

Ryan nodded.

"OK, why don't we start with Maggie tonight?" At hearing her name, Maggie looked over at her Dad. He spoke gently to her, with a babytalk type of voice. "Honey? What happened today? Did you play? Did you have fun?"

"I got a new big brother!" Maggie pointed at Ryan and giggled.

Sam could see that both of his parents were confused. "It was something Angela said. Ryan was swinging Maggie around like I do. It was a joke. But you know Maggie --"

Both of his parents nodded and laughed a little. Yes, they knew Maggie.

Angela spoke up. "I'm next. The interesting thing that happened today is that Ryan came to dinner!"

Angela gave Ryan a huge smile. She was beaming at him. Ryan blushed a little and looked uncomfortable. Sam scolded her, "Angela!" Maggie laughed.

Sam's father stepped in. "OK, everybody. I think for today, we can all agree that having Ryan over for dinner was everybody's interesting thing of the day. All right?"

Everyone nodded and murmured their agreement.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	7. Henry's Talk

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 7 **

After everyone had finished dinner, it was time for Henry to have his chat with Ryan. Which was the main reason why he and Gwen asked Sam to have him over. That, and of course because they wanted to meet him and get to know him a little.

Henry looked down the table at Ryan, who was talking with Sam. "Ryan?" Ryan looked over. "I was wondering if I could I speak with you?"

Ryan nodded, then swallowed nervously.

"Let's go outside." He turned to Sam and Angela. "Help your mother clean up, please."

Henry got up from the table. Before Ryan got up himself, Henry watched him exchange a look with Sam, as if looking for reassurance. He was happy to see that Sam gave Ryan a reassuring smile and nod, letting him know that it wasn't so bad to talk to the old man. Henry smiled to himself. He loved the fact that he had a good relationship with his teenage son.

Henry led Ryan out out the french doors and into the back yard. He headed over to the table that they had next to the pool. He was surprised when Ryan didn't follow him but instead started to head towards the pool house.

"Ryan?"

Ryan looked over at Henry, gave him an embarrassed smile, and changed course to follow him to the table. Henry gave Ryan a confused look.

"Um... I live in the pool house at home. So, um, habit, I guess." Ryan gave Henry an embarrassed shrug.

Henry nodded, thoughtful. A 16-year-old boy living in a pool house? In Henry's opinion, that was just asking for trouble. He'd never let a teenager who was living with his family live in their pool house. You had to keep kids in the house, to keep an eye on them. Otherwise, who knew what they could get away with and you'd never know. As a parent, that was a scary thought.

Henry sat down at the table and gestured to the chair across from him. "Have a seat."

Ryan pulled out the chair and sat down, lowering his eyes. Henry decided to start his talk on a positive note. He didn't want to scare this kid, who looked pretty skittish already.

"I wanted to let you know right off the bat that my wife and I are going to give your friendship with Sam a chance." Henry was glad to see that with that, Ryan picked up his head and looked at him. See, not so bad.

"And I want to thank you for helping Angela last week. I was glad to hear that you and Sam were able to defuse the situation without getting into a fight. My wife and I don't approve of fighting."

Ryan gave Henry a half-smile.

Henry took a deep breath and went into lecture mode. "You see, as parents, we just want to keep our children safe. Keep them out of trouble, keep them from getting hurt, keep them away from bad influences." He saw Ryan look away, towards the pool, uncomfortable, as if he knew that he might be considered a bad influence.

Henry leaned forward. "Sam told us what you told him about the stolen car and the fire, and that you used to live in Chino and are now living with your friend's family here in Newport."

Ryan nodded.

"You seem like a good kid."

Henry waited until Ryan looked back at him.

"And as a kid, I know it is easy to make mistakes, especially if you have bad influences around you. But I firmly believe that kids deserve a second chance. You can learn from your mistakes and move on, especially if you are now in a different environment, away from the bad influences."

Ryan looked straight at Henry and gave him a small smile, then looked away again.

Henry hardened his voice. "But I also want you to know, that if Sam, or Angela, starts to get into trouble -- skipping school, drinking, smoking, partying, lying to us, whatever -- and we suspect you have anything to do with it, we're going to have to forbid them from seeing you any more." Henry paused. "OK?"

Sam looked back up at Henry and nodded. "I get it. I wouldn't do anything to hurt Sam or Angela."

Henry smiled at Ryan, sat back, and relaxed. "Good. Glad to hear it. I know you probably think I'm being too tough, but like I said, my wife and I are just trying do what we can to protect our kids."

Ryan nodded, thoughtfully.

"So, um, who is this friend that you're living with now?"

"My friend Seth. And his parents, Sandy and Kirsten Cohen --"

That caught Henry's attention. He leaned forward again. "Kirsten Cohen? As in Kirsten Nichol Cohen? From The Newport Group?"

"Yeah. You know her?"

"We've met, once or twice. My company does business with The Newport Group." Ryan nodded. "You live with her?"

"Yeah."

Henry was impressed. He knew Kirsten was the daughter of Caleb Nichol, the richest and most powerful man in Orange County. The kid was lucky.

"How did that happen?"

"Sandy -- he's a lawyer. He was _my_ lawyer."

That made sense. With stolen cars and such in Ryan's background, he probably needed a lawyer.

"I met Sandy first. He brought me home. Sandy and Kirsten took me in, um, because I needed a place to stay, um, because..."

Henry waited patiently for Ryan to continue. He looked a little upset. Henry could understand that. If he needed a home, something pretty bad probably happened.

Ryan took a deep breath and looked down. He said quietly, "Because my mother abandoned me."

Henry was shocked. That was even worse than he imagined. How could a mother abandon her child? He'd never understand that, ever. Their children meant the world to him and Gwen.

"I'm sorry."

Ryan shrugged and continued to look down.

Henry watched Ryan for a moment. He and Gwen had been talking for years about looking into adopting a child, or two. They knew that they were very fortunate and that there were countless African-American children out there that needed a home, a home that they could provide. After hearing about Ryan from Sam and Angela, he and Gwen had started talking again about really doing it this time. Over the years it kept getting put on the back burner, behind building their business and raising their own children.

Now that he'd met Ryan, Henry was thinking that they should revise their plans. Instead of adopting a young child, perhaps a troubled teen needed more of what he and Gwen could provide.

After the extended silence, Ryan finally looked up, perhaps to see what Henry was doing. Henry decided to take this opportunity.

"I want to ask you something. Would you mind if my wife and I talk to your... uh... foster parents?"

"Guardians. They're my legal guardians."

"Right, sorry. Guardians. Do you mind if we talk to your guardians? We've been thinking about looking into taking in a child or teenager, and we'd really like to talk it over with a couple who has done it, like the Cohens. I don't want to mislead you, we'll probably end up talking about you, at least in generalities. So I wanted to get your permission first."

Ryan looked surprised. He appeared to think it over. Finally, he said, "Yeah, yeah, I guess that would be OK."

"Thank you, Ryan."

Ryan nodded.

"Well," Henry stood up. "How about we go inside and have some dessert?"

* * *

To Be Continued 


	8. Sandy and Kirsten and Henry and Gwen

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 8 **

The next night at dinner, Ryan heard from Kirsten that Henry Reese had called her, since they already knew each other, he guessed, to see about talking with her and Sandy about taking in a "troubled teen" as Kirsten said he had called it. She and Mr. Reese apparently arranged for his family to come over for a barbecue the next Saturday, so that they could talk in person. Ryan was a little surprised that he had called so soon. He guessed that meant that the Reeses were really serious about this.

Ryan wasn't really looking forward to the barbecue. He knew that Sandy and Kirsten would have to talk about him with Mr. and Mrs. Reese, if they were really going to discuss the "challenges" around taking a kid into their home with a background like his. He'd just have to make sure that he made himself scarce when it looked like the parents were getting into serious talking mode.

The next Saturday, the entire Reese family arrived at the Cohens on time. They were really going to have a house-full, with the four parents, the four teenagers, and the pre-schooler. Ryan had invited Marissa to come, since she _was_ his girlfriend and was expecting to be invited, so he did. He didn't tell her that he partially did it to try and discourage Angela's interest in him, you know, by showing her that he already had a girlfriend. But, unfortunately Marissa wasn't coming after all, because they got into a fight on Friday. So it was just the Reeses and the Cohens and the Atwood.

Sandy was doing the barbecuing, of course, with Ryan and Seth helping, and the three of them trying to keep Kirsten away from anything important, all without letting her catch on to what they were doing. And after the Reeses got there, they also pitched in, and they had brought stuff as well.

During the cooking and the eating, Ryan was glad to see that the conversation was kept light, with no talk about him or about the Reeses' plans. Ryan guessed that they were waiting until after lunch to get into the heavy discussions. So right after lunch, Ryan put his own plan into action. He had already discussed it with Seth and with Sam. Seth borrowed his Mom's Range Rover and the three of them plus Angela went out for the afternoon, leaving alone the parents and the little girl.

* * *

Sandy watched the four kids go out the front door. He could understand why Ryan didn't want to be here while he and Kirsten were talking to Henry and Gwen about their plans. That's why he didn't object to the kids going out. Once the teens were gone, Gwen told them that it was time for Maggie's nap, so Kirsten showed them upstairs to the guest room.

Henry and Sandy each grabbed two cups of coffee and settled down on opposite couches in the livingroom to wait for their wives. Shortly, Kirsten and Gwen came down the stairs and sat next to their husbands.

Sandy started it off. "So -- Kirsten tells me that you are considering taking in a kid like Ryan?"

Henry answered. "That's right. We've been thinking about it and talking about it for years. Our original plan was to try and adopt a younger child, but after meeting Ryan, we feel like we can offer more to a troubled teen, someone similar to Ryan."

"I'd just like to say, I'm not comfortable discussing any of Ryan's specifics..."

"How about if we say what we already know about him, and we can go from there?"

Sandy and Kirsten looked at each other and both nodded. Sandy replied, "That sounds fine."

"We know that Ryan used to live in Chino. Ryan told Sam that he stole one car with his brother, and that there was a house fire that was an accident, and there was a shooting that was an accident. And Ryan told me that you were his lawyer, Sandy, and that you and Kirsten took him in after his mother abandoned him."

Sandy and Kirsten exchanged a surprised look. "Ryan really told you that?" Henry nodded. "Huh, he doesn't usually come right out and tell people."

Henry shrugged. "I guess he really wanted to be friends with Sam."

"OK... Well... The way we got Ryan wasn't exactly by the book. We didn't go through Child Services, not right away, anyway. Like you said, Ryan was my client when I was with the public defender's office. Kirsten and I had never talked about taking in a kid. Not that I didn't want to help my clients, more than as a lawyer, but before Ryan I never considered bringing one home."

Sandy gave Kirsten an amused glance. "Although if you ask Kirsten, it was just a matter of time."

After returning Sandy's smile, Kirsten continued the story. "I admit that when Sandy first brought Ryan home, I didn't want this ... _criminal_ in my house. I guess... I guess at first I was focusing on the possible negative impact that having him here could have on our family. On Seth, in particular. But after I spent some time with him, and got to know him a little, and after I saw how his mother devastated him by leaving, I guess I changed how I looked at it. Instead of focusing on his impact on us, I started to look at the positive impact that we could have on him. And I just couldn't let him go off to a Child Services foster-care group home where he'd just get lost in the system. He needed a good, stable home with a family that cared about him."

Henry and Gwen were nodding to much of what Kirsten had to say. Gwen responded, "Yes, exactly. That's what we're thinking."

Sandy decided it was time to make the suggestion he had been thinking about. "For you, you'll have to go through the system, which means Child Services. Probably the best way to proceed is if the two of you become approved foster parents. That doesn't mean that you have to be on Child Services list and take in children in foster care. It would just make it easier if and when you do find a child that you want to live with you, you can take him or her into your home right away, as foster parents, while you go through the process of adoption, or to become legal guardians."

Henry asked, "That sounds reasonable. What's involved in becoming approved as foster parents?"

"You take some foster parenting classes that are given by Child Services, plus a social worker comes to your home and assesses it to make sure it is a safe home to place children in. From what I've heard, you should have no problems there. It should be a fairly painless process."

Henry and Gwen both nodded. Henry said, "All right, good, that should be a good first step."

"And, if you'd like, I'm familiar with the system, and I have contacts at Child Services. I could act as your attorney and help you navigate the system."

"Thank you, Sandy, we'd like that."

"Just be aware that the process can be complicated and filled with red tape. I can take a long time to find just the right child that fits with your family. And even if you do, things can happen to prevent them from going to live with you -- for example, if they are reunited with their parents."

Gwen answered. "We understand. We're prepared to keep working at it."

"Good."

"What about afterwards? What's it like to have someone like Ryan in your home, part of your family?"

"Still not talking about Ryan in particular..."

"Of course."

"Most kids in foster care come from, as you say, a troubled background. Not all of them have been in trouble with the law, but a lot of them have been. Most of them are victims of some kind -- of abuse, of abandonment, of neglect. In many cases, they are withdrawn and find it hard to trust new people, new situations. They may act out, to test if you are really serious about keeping them, no matter what. Or they may do the opposite and be on their best behavior all the time, and never really speak their mind, for example if they are angry at you, they'll never show it. Kids who act like this are afraid that the least little thing will cause you to throw them back into the system."

After a pause to catch his breath and drink some coffee, Sandy continued, "You'll have your ups and downs. One thing that you'll learn in the foster parenting classes that is important is how to discipline a kid in this situation. Often they've been abused verbally and physically and won't respond well certainly to physical punishment, nor to being yelled at with anger."

Henry was nodding. "Yes, yes, of course. We don't believe in physical punishment, in any situation. And we always try to keep our anger in check with our kids."

"That's great. It sounds like you'll be perfect for this. If you like, I could call my contact at Child Services for you on Monday and get the ball rolling."

"Thanks, again, Sandy. That would be great."

Once they were done talking over the specifics of how they were going to proceed, Sandy called Seth's cell phone to let the kids know that the coast was clear and they could come back.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	9. Six Months Later

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 9 **

March. Ryan couldn't believe it was March already. This school year was going by awfully fast, although the last few months were long and strange. And now, he and Marissa were broken up, Theresa had gone back to Chino and Eddie, Anna was gone, and Seth was spending all of his free time with Summer. So Ryan was spending more of his time with his other friends like Luke, and like Sam.

He and Sam had become close friends, after having each other's backs during the soccer season. Sam would come over to the Cohens', and Ryan would go over to the Reeses'. Usually it was Ryan going over there because sometimes Sam had to babysit Maggie, and sometimes Angela would have been at home alone and she got nervous so she wanted her older brother there. Of course that could just have been an excuse to get Ryan over, too. She still had her crush on him, a little anyway. But Ryan believed he was a couple deep on her depth chart by now. He heard her talking various times about several different boys her own age.

Also over the last months, Sam's parents had become good friends with Sandy and Kirsten. They had continued to talk, many times, about their plans to take in a troubled teen. The Reeses had gone forward with it, with Sandy acting as their attorney. They hadn't found anybody yet, although they had talked to a lot of kids, and even a couple of times had one over for the weekend. Just last week, in fact, they had a promising lead, and it looked for a while like a 15-year-old boy from L.A. would be coming, but that fell through somehow.

And now, this weekend, Seth was going up north for some kind of sailing tournament. Something about the sailing club that he had founded at Harbor. Apparently he went every year, and every year both Kirsten and Sandy went with him to watch him compete. And they wanted to go again this year. Ryan couldn't go because they were going to be gone from Friday through Tuesday and he couldn't afford to miss any school.

Ryan expected to just stay at the Cohens' during the long weekend, but Kirsten and Sandy had surprised him by telling him that they didn't want him staying home alone. Ryan wasn't sure if it was leftover distrust after the Oliver affair, or if it was something else. It wasn't like he wasn't old enough to stay home alone. But Ryan had given in to their request and agreed to spend the five days over at Sam's.

* * *

On Friday after school, Sam (with Angela) drove Ryan over to the Cohens so that Ryan could pick up his stuff before they headed home. Sam pulled into the driveway and parked, and the three teens went in the front door. On the way through the kitchen, Ryan told Sam and Angela, "I'll just head out to the pool house and grab my stuff."

Angela jumped all over that. "You live in the pool house? Wow! That's _so_ cool! Can I see?"

Sam was surprised that Angela didn't remember that from when they had come over here for the barbecue back in September. Well, it was a long time ago, and she hadn't been back since, and Sam couldn't remember if it was really mentioned then or not, so maybe it wasn't so surprising.

Without waiting for an answer, Angela opened one of the french doors in the kitchen and ran up the steps towards the pool house, closely followed by Ryan and Sam. She barely slowed down enough to open the door to go in and stopped just inside to admire what she saw.

"Cool! You, like, have your own apartment!"

"Angela, you know what the pool house is like. We have one exactly like it."

"But nobody lives in ours. It's totally different!"

Sam rolled his eyes at that.

Ryan grabbed his dufflebag that was already packed off the bed and turned towards the door. "Ready. Let's go."

The three of them left the pool house and went back into the kitchen. Sam paused when the got there. "Hey, Ryan, you know, we can just stay here for a little while. Play video games or something. Have some snacks. My folks won't even know, if we get home before they do and before Maggie's brought home."

Ryan gave Sam a conspiratorial smile and put his dufflebag down on the floor in the den. Sam smiled back and headed for the refrigerator.

* * *

Ryan and Sam and Angela stayed at the Cohens for an extra two hours or so, playing some of Seth's video games, drinking soda, and eating junk food. It struck Ryan that no matter how strict the parents were, they couldn't watch their kids 24/7, and any kid was going to take advantage of any opportunity they had to break the rules without being caught.

Ryan watched Sam and Angela being so happy about getting away with not going right home like they were expected to, and playing a couple extra hours of video games above their daily limit, and eating the food that their parents didn't want them to eat. He had to smile to himself. If that was the worst that they were going to do, in terms of being rebellious and breaking the rules, then maybe the parents knew what they were doing afterall.

They managed to make it back to the Reeses' before either Maggie or the parents got home. Ryan went upstairs and dropped off his bookbag and his dufflebag in the guest room. Sam had told him that his parents didn't want Ryan staying in the pool house, they wanted him inside the house, so it was the guest room for him. It was upstairs next to Sam's room. Angela and Maggie had their own rooms across the hall. The guest room was large with its own bathroom.

Maggie got home first and by the time Mr. and Mrs. Reese got home with the take-out dinner that they picked up on the way home, Ryan, Sam, and Angela were innocently hanging out in the den and watching Maggie as if they had never broken any rules that day at all.

They all had an uneventful family dinner. After dinner, Sam's Dad addressed Ryan. "Can we talk? Why don't we go in the livingroom? Sam, why don't you join us?"

Ryan nodded and followed Mr. Reese into the livingroom. He wasn't sure what Sam's father wanted to talk to him about. He took a quick look at Sam, but Sam just shrugged, so he didn't know either. In the livingroom, Ryan and Sam sat down on the couch, and Sam's Dad sat down in a chair opposite them.

"Ryan, I know you're a guest here and we're not your parents, but while you're here we'd appreciate it if you would respect the rules of the house that we have."

Ryan nodded. He pretty much had expected this. "Of course, Mr. Reese."

"Great. I know that you're already familiar with most of them with all the time you've spent here, but I'd like to go over them with you now just in case. And, Sam, you can let me know if I've missed anything."

"Sure thing, Dad."

"OK. The basic ones are no fighting, no drinking, no drugs, no smoking. And our kids have a curfew. Sam's is 11 O'Clock on school nights, and midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. I'd appreciate it if you could honor the same curfew."

Ryan nodded. That was the same curfew that the Cohens had, and the rest was the same too.

"And you know about our policy about soda and junk food. Please don't bring any of that kind of food into the house. I know you're also familiar with Sam and Angela's limit on the amount of video games they can play and TV they can watch every day."

"Yes, I am." Ryan took a quick glance at Sam. He looked like he was trying hard to look innocent.

"And basically, we expect you to do what you're supposed to. Go to school, do your homework, be home for dinner, the usual. Sam, is there anything I've forgotten?"

Sam shook his head slowly. "I don't think so."

Sam's Dad nodded. "I'm sure if there is anything else, it will come up as we go along. Ryan, it is good to have you here. I'm sure we'll all have a good time together this weekend."

"Thank you."

Sam's father got up. Ryan and Sam followed suit. That was the end of the conversation. Not too bad. Ryan wasn't planning on skipping school or anything anyway. There was a reason that he couldn't miss school these three days, and he still couldn't afford to. He had a test and a major project due.

* * *

Later that evening, Sam's mother had a few concerns of her own that she addressed with Ryan up in the guest room. Ryan had gone up to get ready for bed. She knocked on the door and Ryan invited her in.

"How's the guest room look? I know you're used to the pool house..."

"It's great. It's fine."

Mrs. Reese nodded. She looked a little uncomfortable. "Um... Maybe my husband should be the one to talk to you about this, but..."

Ryan was curious but waited for her to continue.

She cleared her throat and looked directly at Ryan. "We have girls in this house. Girls with curiosity. I'd appreciate it if you could be aware of this. It would probably be best if you lock the door when you're showering or changing. And we expect you to be decently clothed whenever you're outside of this room."

Ryan nodded. So that is what this was all about. "Of course."

"And... umm... I don't know what you usually wear to bed, but if it is... um... _less_, maybe while you're here you could wear _more_? I would say you could lock the door while you're in bed, but that's really not a good idea in case there is a fire or other kind of emergency and we need to get in quickly."

With that, Sam's mother looked embarrassed and didn't really wait for Ryan to answer before she ducked out of the room.

After she left, Ryan smiled to himself. He could understand her concerns. He didn't want to give Angela any more fuel for her fantasies. It was a good thing that he was used to sleeping in a t-shirt and sweatpants.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	10. Weekend at Sam's

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 10 **

On Saturday morning, Ryan woke up to find another warm body in bed with him. After he opened his eyes and remembered that he was in the Reeses' guest room, he panicked for just a second thinking what if it was Angela who snuck into his bed? How was he going to explain that one to her parents? Her father would kick his ass. Not literally, thank goodness, but still, he would not be happy.

Ryan was relieved when he looked over to see not the older sister, but the younger one, Maggie. He got out of bed, careful to not disturb the sleeping 3-year-old. Now, if only he could just get her back into her own bed without anybody knowing...

Unfortunately, he didn't get that chance. He heard a knock on the door.

"Ryan? Are you awake? Are you decent?"

Maggie's mother opened the bedroom door slowly and poked her head in. When she saw Ryan standing next to the bed, decently clothed in the tank top and black sweatpants that he usually wore as night clothes, she smiled at him and came in. When she got close enough to see the bed, Ryan gestured towards Maggie. Mrs. Reese looked at her and laughed softly.

She said to Ryan, quietly, to not wake up Maggie, "I should have warned you. She does this all the time. If she's not in our bed in the morning, I can often find her in Sam's or Angela's. We're hoping that she just grows out of this habit and starts to stay in her own bed every night."

Ryan gave Maggie's mother a little smile.

Mrs. Reese reached into the bed and picked up her youngest daughter. Before she left, she looked back over at Ryan. "You know, she almost never goes into a guest's bed. She must really like you."

Ryan gave her a nod and watched her carry Maggie out of the room. He went ahead and took his shower and got dressed then headed down to the kitchen for breakfast. It was kind of weird. In all the times that he'd come over to this house, he'd never been here this early, had never been here for breakfast.

By the time he got down to breakfast, Sam, Angela, and their father were already there. Presumably their mother was still upstairs helping Maggie.

"Morning."

Mr. Reese responded. "Good morning, Ryan. Did you sleep all right?"

"Yeah. Fine. Thanks."

"I hear you had a visitor this morning." At least he looked amused about it.

Sam caught on and gave Ryan a smile. "No way! Maggie was in your bed?"

Ryan smiled back. "Yeah."

Ryan headed for the cabinet and took out a coffee mug. He felt comfortable helping himself. He pretty much knew where everything was and over the months of visiting here, he'd been told just to make himself at home, so he did. Ryan reached for the coffee pot.

"Um, Ryan?"

Ryan stopped with his hand on the coffee pot handle and turned to look at Mr. Reese.

"You drink coffee?"

"Yeah?" Ryan wasn't sure where this was headed.

"We... my wife and I don't think it is such a good idea for teenagers to drink coffee. So we don't allow our kids to drink it, and I only made enough for me and my wife..."

Ryan took his hand off the coffee pot. "Oh, OK, that's cool."

"Sorry."

"No, no, that's OK. I can go without it. It'll be fine."

Ryan put the mug back in the cabinet and took out a glass and poured himself some orange juice. Then he sat down at the table and helped himself to the breakfast foods.

Once he was all settled in and eating, Sam spoke up. "So, hey, Ryan. What do you want to do today? I was thinking we could go down to the beach, have lunch at the pier, maybe see a movie? I don't know..."

Angela jumped in. "Hey, that sounds great!"

Sam glared at his sister. "You're not invited."

Angela turned towards her father and whined, "Dad --"

"Angela, honey, why don't you let Sam and Ryan spend the day together. Ryan's here for three more days. I'm sure you can find some time to hang out with him later. Besides, didn't you just hang out with him and Sam yesterday?"

"Yeah, but..."

"Honey."

Angela sighed, conceding defeat. Ryan and Sam exchanged a look. They didn't want Angela tagging along all day.

Ryan replied to Sam, "Yeah, that sounds great. But I have a lot of homework this weekend, so if we're out today, I'll have to study tomorrow, so..."

"That's OK. I have my own studying to do tomorrow."

"Cool."

So after breakfast, Sam and Ryan took Sam's car and headed down to the beach. They hung out, Ryan got himself some coffee, and they just had a nice relaxing day.

* * *

On Sunday morning, Ryan woke up earlier than usual. He found Maggie in his bed again. She was so cute sleeping there. Ryan went ahead and got up and got dressed, in the bathroom, with the door locked. When he got out, Maggie was already awake.

When she saw Ryan, she stood up on the bed and held out her hands to him. "Ryan!"

"Morning, munchkin." Ryan went over and picked her up. "Want to help me cook breakfast?"

Maggie jumped up and down, or actually, the equivalent since she was in Ryan's arms. "Yay!"

Ryan didn't know what her morning routine was, so he didn't try and get her dressed or anything. He took her to the bathroom, then brought her down to the kitchen in her jammies. He was making the Reeses breakfast to thank them for having him over for the weekend. At home, he didn't often make breakfast for the whole family, but sometimes he made like eggs and bacon for himself, as a break from the usual cereal or bagels. But he still remembered how to do breakfast for the whole family.

Mr. and Mrs. Reese arrived in the kitchen together a little later, when Ryan's cooking was in full swing. Mrs. Reese came over to see what all was going on.

"Wow, Ryan, you're cooking us breakfast?"

Ryan was a little embarrassed. "Yeah. I just thought... you know..."

She smiled at him. "That's great. Thank you."

Ryan smiled and nodded back at her, then went back to his cooking.

Mrs. Reese went over to Maggie, who was sitting on one of the kitchen island stools, eating some shredded cheese that Ryan had given her from the omelet that he was making. "Morning, little one. What are you doing?"

"Helping my brother!"

Ryan had to smile at that. Sam had been right. Maggie had continued to refer to him as her brother, ever since Angela had joked about it so long ago. She was like a dog with a bone, as they say.

"And you're doing a very good job, too." Maggie's mother held out her hand. "Come on, let's get you ready for church." She helped Maggie jump down from the stool and led her out of the kitchen towards the stairs.

Mr. Reese went over and started making the coffee. Ryan hadn't made any, trying to honor their rules about no coffee for the kids. And besides, yesterday, not having coffee at breakfast, he realized how dependent he was on the caffeine. He decided to try and cut down.

"Ryan, we're going to church after breakfast. 10 O'Clock service. If you want to, you can join us..."

"Um, no, I don't think so, if that's OK. I'll just stay here and study."

Ryan's family hadn't been much into the religion. Ryan wasn't sure if he'd even ever been inside a church, except for a couple of times that Theresa had dragged him along with her.

"Sure, that's fine."

Ryan went back to his cooking and finished the breakfast. By the time he was done, the entire family was there and enjoyed it. Ryan got a little embarrassed by all the _thank you_'s and _this is delicious_'s. After breakfast, Sam, Angela, Maggie, and their parents left for church, leaving Ryan alone in their house. It was strange. He'd never been alone in their house before. Sam, at least, had always been there when he was there. A lot of firsts this weekend.

After cleaning up after breakfast, Ryan holed up in the guest room, working on his project and studying for his test. He was pretty much there all day, with a break for lunch and another for dinner. At times, he really missed the caffeine, what with no coffee and no Coke in the house. Maybe this wasn't the best day to try to cut down. But he plowed his way through and managed to finish all of his school work.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	11. Going Home

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 11 **

Monday morning at the Reese house was the standard routine of everybody in the household, including the guest, getting ready for school and work. It was standard, but different than at the Cohens': watching Sandy coming back from surfing, eating cereal straight out of the box, drinking lots of coffee with Seth, and riding his bike to school. Instead there was no coffee, eating granola cereal from a bowl with Sam and Angela, watching Sam's parents run around getting Maggie and everyone ready, driving to school in Sam's car, and rushing right to the student lounge to get some coffee. Ryan would really have to look into cutting down on his dependence on caffeine.

It was kind of weird, not being at the Cohens' before school for the first time. It was also weird not having Seth in school, for the second day in a row. Even though they didn't have any classes together, they were normally together before school, and often ran into each other in the halls, and usually managed to eat lunch together.

By the end of the day, Ryan just wanted something familiar. He didn't want go straight back to the Reeses' house with Sam and Angela. But he was a little embarrassed to tell Sam that he wanted to go home for a while, especially since he'd only been gone for three days, and he'd be going home tomorrow.

Ryan couldn't really explain it. How could he possibly be _homesick_, for heaven's sake? It wasn't like he was a 6-year-old going to camp for his first time -- not that he'd ever been to camp. But, he wanted to go home, so he told Sam that he had to do some research in the library and he'd make his own way back to Sam's house when he was done. Instead, he walked back to the Cohens'.

But when Ryan got there, and the place was empty, it wasn't as comforting being there as he'd hoped. It wasn't like he'd never been home before without Seth, Kirsten, or Sandy being there, but it had always been just for a little while, and he knew someone would be home in a few hours. This was different, it felt so... _empty_.

Ryan wandered around the empty house -- the kitchen, the den, the livingroom, even into Kirsten and Sandy's bedroom, and upstairs into Seth's bedroom. He lay down on Seth's bed and stared at the ceiling and tried to figure out what he was feeling. He reached over and grabbed Captain Oats. Seth seemed to always find it helpful to hold the plastic horse when he was trying to figure stuff out, so he figured _why not?_

Ryan knew he felt this feeling before, but he couldn't quite place it. He closed his eyes and tried to think back and associate this feeling with a place and time. His eyes flew open when he realized what it was -- it was the feeling he had when he went back to his mother's house and found _it_ empty. He felt abandoned again.

Ryan quickly sat up in Seth's bed. That was ridiculous. The Cohens didn't abandon him, they were just gone for a few days. Maybe it was just a little leftover feeling from when he felt like everyone had emotionally abandoned him during the Oliver affair. But he had thought he was over that. Everything was back to normal between him and Seth and between him and Sandy. He still hadn't quite forgiven Marissa, but that shouldn't have anything to do with this.

Ryan shook his head to try and clear it. He put down Captain Oats and made his way downstairs. Maybe if he talked to Seth, that would help. He used the cordless in the kitchen to call Seth's cell, but it went directly to voice mail, so Seth must have turned it off. After hanging up the phone, without leaving a message, he was unsure if he wanted to try Sandy or Kirsten. After a moment, he decided to try Sandy.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Sandy, it's Ryan."

"Hey, kid, how's it going? Is something wrong?"

"No, no, nothing's wrong."

"Hold on -- caller id says you're calling from the house. Why are you at the house? Haven't you been staying with Sam? You said you would..."

"Yeah, no, I am. I just... I just needed to pick something up at the house that I forgot."

"Uh-huh. You sure you're OK?"

"I'm fine."

"You had your test today, right? How'd that go?"

"Good. I think I'm going to do well."

"And your project is due tomorrow?"

"Yeah. I'm almost done. I'll finish tonight."

"Good, good."

"How are things going up there? How's Seth doing?"

"He came in second in his first round heat, which qualified him for the semifinals, but he came in fourth in his semifinal heat and didn't make it to the finals."

"Didn't he win last year?"

"Yeah, but that was in the 13 to 15 year old division, now he's competing in the 16 to 18 division."

"Oh, right. So... he's not competing today?"

"No, but he wanted to stay and watch the finals, plus tonight there is a party for all the participants and Seth wants to go to that. But we'll be back tomorrow, as planned."

"What time?"

"Probably not 'til after 4, maybe as late as 6, but it shouldn't be any later than that."

"OK."

"How are things going at Sam's? Are you having fun? Not giving Henry and Gwen any trouble?"

"You'd already know about it if I was."

"True. Henry would have called. So we'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. I'll be here."

"Well, Kirsten's waiting for me I should go."

"OK."

"See you tomorrow, Ryan."

Ryan hung up the phone. After talking to Sandy, he felt much better. With Sandy being so parental, asking about school and stuff, he felt more connected to him. He looked around the empty kitchen. Maybe Sandy and Kirsten were right, maybe it was good that he didn't stay here in this empty house all this time.

Ryan grabbed his bookbag and headed out to the pool house. He intended to just spend a little time in familiar surroundings, sitting on his own bed, doing his homework, like he did pretty much every day. He intended to watch the clock and head back to the Reeses' before the parents got home, like he and Sam and Angela did last Friday.

Unfortunately, Ryan got into his homework and lost track of time. Before he knew it, the phone in the pool house was ringing. He looked over and the caller id said it was from the Reeses' house. He looked at the clock. It was 6 O'Clock.

_Crap._

"Hello?"

It was Sam. "Man, where the hell have you been? I told my folks you were doing research at school and my Dad called over there and kind of freaked when you weren't there."

"Sorry, man, I just had to come home for a while."

In the background, Ryan heard Sam's Dad's voice telling Sam to give him the phone. "Ryan?"

Ryan sighed. "Yeah."

"Where have you been?"

"I came home for a while."

"I can see that. I wish you had told us, or at least Sam, where you were going. While you're here at our house we're responsible for you. Sandy and Kirsten would never forgive us if something happened to you while you're here."

"I'm sorry." Ryan stood up, wedged the cordless phone between his ear and his shoulder, and started packing up his stuff. "I'm on my way right now."

"I'm sending Sam over to pick you up."

"You don't have to --"

"Yes, I do." Mr. Reese used the tone of voice that Sam described as his _don't argue with me_ tone.

"OK. I'm really sorry."

Mr. Reese sighed. "All right, Ryan. I would say don't do it again, but since you're going home for real tomorrow, it would be pretty pointless."

Ryan wasn't sure what to say to that, so he just kept packing up his stuff and didn't say anything.

"OK... Well... Dinner will be waiting for you and Sam when you get back."

"Thanks."

Mr. Reese hung up the phone. Ryan put down his phone, finished packing up his bookbag, locked up the pool house and the main house, and went out front to wait for Sam. He hoped that Mr. Reese wasn't too mad. Ryan wasn't really used to telling the parental units where he was going all the time. He'd heard from Sam and Angela that their parents always wanted to know where they were going, who they were going with, when they'd be back. But he didn't think that it would apply to him.

* * *

On Tuesday morning, Ryan packed up his dufflebag. He was going to take it with him this morning and leave it in Sam's car during school because Sam was going to take him directly home after school. He headed down to breakfast with the Reeses.

After breakfast, Mrs. Reese surprised him by hugging him. "Goodbye, Ryan, it's been very nice having you here. I'm sure you'll be back here soon, though, right?"

Ryan exchanged a look with Sam then smiled at his mother. "Of course."

And Mr. Reese shook his hand. Apparently he wasn't still mad about yesterday. "Say 'hi' to Sandy and Kirsten for us."

"Sure."

And Maggie held her hands up to him, and he picked her up and twirled her around and she squealed.

Finally he and Sam and Angela were able to get out of there and head off to school. After school, as planned, Sam drove Ryan home. This time when Ryan walked into the empty house, it felt much better. He knew that Seth, Sandy, and Kirsten would be home in a few hours. It didn't feel so empty. Ryan headed out to the pool house to unpack. Then he did his usual and sat on his bed and did his homework and waited for the Cohens to get home.

When they got home, Seth came bounding into the pool house, all full of news about his trip up north that he just couldn't help from telling Ryan all about, in detail. Ryan smiled, put down his homework, and listened to Seth chatter on.

He was home.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	12. Thursday Afternoon

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

Author's Notes: This chapter contains a bit of a shout-out to _Thursday Afternoon_ by **muchtvs**.

* * *

** Chapter 12 **

It was Thursday afternoon and Ryan was at Sam's. And he was staying over for dinner, too. Ryan was at Sam's because Seth was home, sick. _Some people_ panicked a little when Seth got sick right away after The Nana left. _Some people_ failed to realize that there was no way that Seth had cancer -- he just had a fever. But Kirsten insisted upon taking Seth to the doctor anyway. The doctor confirmed what the more reasonable members of the family suspected: Seth had the flu.

But it _was_ an infectious disease, and Seth _was_ contagious, at least for the next few days. They all agreed that Ryan should stay as far away from Seth as possible for those few days. At least as much as he could, given that they lived in the same house. Kirsten and Sandy didn't want to deal with two sick teenagers in the house.

So Ryan came over to the Reeses' right after school. This time it was just him and Sam and Maggie. Sam was babysitting. Ryan and Sam had spent most of the last couple hours at the kitchen table, trying to keep Maggie busy and out of their way so they could get their homework done.

Sam had gone upstairs to his bedroom to look for some class notes that he needed, leaving Ryan looking after Maggie. The doorbell rang. Maggie jumped up from where she was playing on the floor in the den and ran towards the front door. She loved to answer the door. It was her new thing. She'd get sick of it soon and move on to something else, but for now, she ran to answer the door every time.

Ryan sighed, put down his pen, and followed her. She wasn't allowed to answer the door by herself, so whoever was in charge of her always had to go too.

On Ryan's way to the door, he heard her open it and heard a man's voice say, "Why, hello, little girl. Is your Mommy or Daddy home?"

As Ryan turned the corner into the foyer, he saw a white man outside. Maggie was hanging onto the doorknob and looking up at him.

She told him, "My brothers are here!"

"Maggie, you know you're not supposed to answer the door by yourself."

The man looked up when he heard that and saw Ryan. Ryan almost burst out laughing at the look of surprise on his face. Ryan reached over and picked Maggie up. She snuggled into him. The guy practically had his jaw hanging open.

"Can I help you?"

The guy was dumbstruck or something because he didn't say anything for a few moments. He just kept staring at the sight of a white teenage boy holding a black 3-year-old girl. And Ryan was staring back, enjoying the guy's dumbfoundedness with amusement. Then Sam came down from upstairs and joined Ryan and Maggie at the front door.

"What's going on?"

The guy relaxed visibly and smiled when he saw Sam. He addressed Maggie. "_This_ must be your brother."

But Maggie was very adamant about this. "They're both my brothers!"

The guy looked confused again. Even more confused, if that was possible. He looked back and forth between Ryan, Maggie, and Sam.

Finally, Ryan got sick of this. "What did you want, again?"

"Um... I'll... I'll come back." And with that he turned and went out to his car and got in, with one look back at the three standing inside the doorway.

After he left, Ryan shut the door and put Maggie down. He and Sam exchanged a look and burst out laughing. The look on the guy's face was just so funny. At this point, Ryan was glad that Angela made that joke to Maggie back in September about him being her brother, and glad that Maggie had hung on to it this whole time.

* * *

Henry and the rest of the family got a laugh about it too when Ryan and Sam relayed the story at dinner.

Henry said to Gwen, "We should tell your brother that story. He'll get a kick out of it." Henry turned to Ryan to explain. "Gwen's brother and his wife are coming on Saturday to be with us over Easter."

Ryan nodded. "Sam told me."

Henry's brother-in-law Nathan had a couple of sons who were a little older than Sam and Angela. Nathan and Beverly's kids weren't coming this year because they were both in college. Their youngest was a freshman now, so this was the first year that were coming alone, without the kids. Henry was glad. Things could get a little crowded, and hectic, with the two extra teenage boys in the house.

Henry was surprised when Angela quickly spoke up.

"You know what would be good? If we tell Uncle Nathan that Ryan lives here. You know, like really our brother!"

Sam agreed with his sister. "Yeah! That would be great!"

Henry's first thought was that it was a crazy but interesting idea.

Gwen apparently didn't think much of it, though. "Kids --"

But the idea was becoming more appealing to Henry the more he thought about it. "Honey, I don't know. It might be just the thing to teach your brother a lesson."

Ryan gave Sam a confused look. Sam explained.

"My Uncle Nathan is a little... he... he doesn't really like... white people." Ryan raised his eyebrows. Sam quickly added, "He doesn't hate you guys or anything, he just... he told my cousins they couldn't date white girls, and he keeps telling us to move out of here into a black community..."

Henry thought he could clarify things for Ryan. "Nathan just thinks that the black community in America would be better off being more self-sufficient, more separate from the white majority. He doesn't realize that's not really possible in this day and age."

Gwen was nodding, now. "I see where you're going with this, Henry. If we tell him that Ryan's a member of our family, he's going to have to face some of his prejudices."

"Exactly." Henry turned to Ryan. "What do you think, Ryan? Are you up for it? You'd have to stay here for the weekend, like you did last month."

Ryan didn't say anything at first. It looked like he wasn't sure what to think. Henry couldn't blame him. It all happened so quickly. And it was kind of a strange idea.

Sam apparently saw Ryan's reluctance, too. "Come on, man. It'll be fun. And there's some stuff we didn't get to do the last time you were here."

Angela agreed. "Yeah!"

* * *

Ryan looked around at all the Reeses. They were all smiling and nodding at him, all excited about this idea. Ryan thought about it. It might be fun, like a practical joke. And besides, he wasn't really looking forward being at home this weekend. With Seth being sick inside the house, he was pretty much going to be confined to the pool house.

"Sure, yeah, OK."

Sam and Angela both thought that was "Great!"

Sam's Dad got practical. "OK. Everyone. We have to work this all out -- the history and everything. First of all, Ryan, why don't you stay here starting tonight, since you're here already? That way you can get settled in and look more like you really live here before Nathan and Beverly get here on Saturday."

It was all going a little fast for Ryan. But there was really no reason not to start it tonight. He didn't have anything he had to do at home. "Um... I guess. I'll have to get my stuff, though."

"Oh, right. Well, Sam can take you home to pack up some of your stuff and bring it back."

Ryan looked at Sam. "Yeah. I guess that would be OK."

Mrs. Reese turned to her husband. "I think this time Ryan should stay in the pool house. He's used to staying there, so he'll feel more at home in a shorter time."

Sam's Dad looked at Ryan. He nodded slowly, as if he really didn't like the idea, but was going along for the reasons Sam's Mom said. "Sure."

But then something seemed to occur to him. "Wait. Ryan, do you have to be home for Easter?"

"Um... No... The Cohens don't celebrate Easter. We just had Passover on Sunday. Sandy's mother was here from New York."

"Oh, right, Cohen, sorry."

"No, it's OK. Actually, they're half-and-half. They celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah. But they said that they couldn't celebrate both Passover and Easter. Something about either Christ rose or he didn't. Something like that."

Ryan shrugged. Sandy tried to explain it, but Ryan didn't really get it. Ryan's family was nominally Christian, but they never went to church, and only celebrated the holidays in like a secular way, not a religious way. When they celebrated holidays at all.

Sam's Mom picked up the planning. "OK. Good. So, we'll have to figure out what we're going to tell Nathan and Beverly. Ryan, you were here last month, the first weekend of the month, right? Maybe we can say that's when you got here, and you've been here ever since. Angela, can you get the calendar from the kitchen?"

Angela got up and got the calendar off the wall in the kitchen. When she came back, there really wasn't room on the table to lay it out, since all the dinner dishes were still there.

Mrs. Reese suggested, "Why don't we all finish dinner first, then we can get down to business."

So that's what they did. They finished dinner and cleared the table. They got Maggie settled playing in the den. Then they laid out the calendar, and Mr. Reese got a pad of paper and pen from next to the phone to keep track of everything. And they were all ready to plan their little caper.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	13. I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 13 **

Mr. Reese got it started. "As far as what we tell Nathan and Beverly about your background, Ryan, I'm thinking that we should stay as close as possible to your real history. Since I think we're all at least somewhat familiar with it, it would help us minimize the number of lies that we have to keep straight. That is, if that's all right with you?"

Ryan didn't really want to go through his whole history again, but Mr. Reese was right, the fewer lies the better. Ryan had learned that the hard way.

"Sure, Mr. Reese. That would be all right."

"Oh, that reminds me. You call the Cohens by their first names, right? So you should call us Henry and Gwen."

"OK."

_Henry and Gwen_. That was going to take some getting used to. Ryan had been thinking of them as either Mr. and Mrs. Reese or as Sam's Dad and Mom for over six months. It was hard enough getting used to calling Sandy and Kirsten _Sandy_ and _Kirsten_, and he'd only known them for a few weeks when they told him to call them that. For a long time, he didn't really call them anything at all. _Mr. and Mrs. Cohen_ didn't sound right any more, but _Sandy and Kirsten_ didn't seem right either. Eventually he got used to it, though.

Mrs. Reese -- er, _Gwen_ -- laid the calendar out in front of them. She flipped to March. "OK, let's see. Ryan, you were here, what, the fifth through the ninth, right? And today is..." She flipped to April. "... the eighth. So that works out. If you came here March 5th, you've been here about a month."

_Henry_ turned the calendar towards him and flipped back to February. He pointed to the last week of the month. "This is when we almost got that boy from L.A., right? Did you tell your brother about him?"

Gwen thought for a moment. "Um... yeah... I spoke to Nathan when he called to wish Angela a Happy Birthday. I updated him on our progress then."

Ryan knew that Angela's 15th birthday was March 1st. She said at the time that she wished she'd been born a year earlier, because then she would have been born February 29th, which would have been _so_ cool.

Henry nodded. "So great, we can tell Nathan that Ryan is the boy you told him about then. You didn't tell him that it fell through, though, right?"

Gwen thought for a moment, again. "No... I talked to Beverly last week to finalize our plans, but I didn't talk to Nathan, and we didn't talk about our search."

"Sam, Angela, did you mention anything to your Uncle Nathan?"

They both shook their heads and said, "No."

"Good. I think we have the beginnings of a plan here. How about -- Ryan's the boy from February, and he came March 5th, but he's from Chino, not L.A., and he's 16, not 15. Ryan, you're still 16, right?"

"Right. My birthday's not until next month."

Ryan knew that Sam's 17th birthday was in January, and with Angela being 15 now, that made the three of them 15 and 16 and 17, which worked out kind of nicely.

"Oh, good, we would know when your birthday is. What day?"

"The tenth."

After what Henry said, Ryan wondered if Kirsten and Sandy knew when his birthday was. They'd never discussed it. He'd have to find out when he got home.

Sam told Ryan, "We have to give you a birthday party next month, man!"

Angela agreed. "Yeah! We totally have to!"

Ryan smiled. He hadn't had a birthday party in a while, unless you count Trey taking him out drinking on his 16th birthday. "Sure."

Henry started writing stuff down on his pad. "OK, so, Ryan Atwood, 16, birthday 5/10, from Chino. Do you have a middle name?"

"No." But he always wanted one.

Henry nodded and wrote down "N.M.I." for "no middle initial" on his pad. Then he put his pen down and folded his hands together and leaned forward.

"How about this -- Ryan still stole that car with his brother, and Sandy is still his lawyer. And Sandy is our friend and lawyer too, so when Ryan... um... needed a home... "

Henry looked a little uncomfortable. Obviously he didn't want to say out loud that Ryan's mother kicked him out then abandoned him.

Henry cleared his throat and continued. "... when you needed a home, Sandy brought you here to us, instead of to his house, because he knew we were looking for a teenager to take in. And it became permanent -- we became your legal guardians -- on March 5th."

Ryan and the others were nodding. It sounded like a good plan.

Henry picked up his pen again. "Let me make sure I have this straight. Your brother is in jail since the car, right?"

"Right. He's in prison in Chino."

"How long is he going to be there?"

"Sandy says 3 to 5 years."

"What's his name? How old is he?"

"Trey. He's 19... no... he's 20 now."

Trey's birthday was last week. Ryan couldn't believe that he'd forgotten it until now. He wished he could have called or visited him, but they'd agreed it was best not to see each other.

"And you have no other brothers and sisters, right?"

"Right."

"And your father is..."

"He's in prison for armed robbery."

"And you have no other relatives you could live with? Grandparents? Aunts and Uncles? ..."

"Nope." Ryan noticed that Henry didn't mention his mother.

Henry finished writing things down. "OK. I think that covers it. Anything else anyone can think of?"

Gwen replied, "Obviously we have to clear this with Sandy and Kirsten, first."

"Right. I'll call Sandy."

Sam spoke up. "What about Maggie?" They all turned to look at Maggie in the den. "She could ruin the whole thing by just blurting out the truth."

Gwen told him, "I'll talk to her. I'll tell her that we're playing make believe. She loves to play pretend. I'll tell her that we're pretending that Ryan lives here and is really her brother."

Henry put in. "And just to be safe, let's not let Maggie be alone with Nathan or Beverly. One of us should be there all the time, then if she says something, we'll be there to cover."

"Good idea."

They all looked at each other. Then Ryan cleared his throat and and the Reeses all looked at him.

"Um... I don't know if you know about this, but... I'm... I'm on probation, you know, for the car."

Henry gave Ryan a reassuring look. "Actually, yes, we did know about that."

Ryan nodded. He wasn't sure. It had never come up in conversation with the Reeses and Ryan wasn't sure if Sam or Sandy would have told them. Ryan wondered how Henry and Gwen knew, but he wasn't going to ask.

When no one had anything else after a moment, Henry said, "OK, sounds like we're done." He smiled. "I love it when a plan comes together."

Angela and Sam groaned. Sam said, "God, Dad, quoting from _The A-Team_?"

Ryan chuckled.

After a moment, Henry got up and got the phone and headed outside to call Sandy privately. And Gwen went over to the den and sat Maggie down to explain how they were "playing make believe". That left the three teens in the kitchen. Sam got up followed by Angela then Ryan to finish cleaning up after dinner. As they were cleaning, they chatted about their plans for the weekend.

After a few minutes, Henry came back inside and held the phone out. "Ryan, Sandy wants to talk to you."

"OK."

Ryan took the phone and headed out into the back yard by the pool, for privacy.

"Hey, Sandy."

"Hey, kid. Henry told me about his plans for the weekend. Are you OK with all this?"

"Yeah... yeah."

"Because as I told Henry, it would help us out for you to stay there, you know, with Seth sick and all. If you're here at the house, even if you stay in the pool house, there's still a pretty good chance you'll catch the flu."

Ryan smiled. "And we don't want that."

Sandy chuckled. "No, we don't... So, I was thinking that it would be best if you didn't come back here at all. I can bring you clothes and other stuff that you need for the weekend."

"Um, sure, I guess that would be OK."

"All right, hold on, let me head out to the pool house so I can grab stuff as you tell me what you need."

There was a pause as presumably Sandy was heading out to the pool house.

"Ready."

"OK. First of all, I'm going to need all of my school stuff. Everything should be on the kitchen island counter."

"OK. I see them. What about your laptop?"

"Yeah. I'll need that for school."

"Hold on, I need to find... You have your bookbag with you, right?"

"Right. Why don't you put that stuff in my dufflebag with the clothes and stuff?"

"Where's your -- OK, I see it... got it."

Ryan waited a moment to give Sandy time to get the dufflebag and put his school stuff in it.

"All right. I'll grab some clothes for you. Socks... Underwear... T-shirts... Shirts... Pants..."

"Sandy, don't bring too much. Remember, we're pretending that I've only been here for like a month. I didn't have that much stuff after a month at your house. Oh, and I still had my old boots, so grab those."

"OK."

Ryan waited, again. Ryan also still had his old Chino clothes, including his leather jacket, kind of hidden away. If they wanted to be really accurate, Sandy should bring those, too. But Ryan didn't know if Sandy knew he still had them, and he didn't really want Sandy to know, so Ryan decided he didn't care about being that accurate.

"Ready. What about your CD player... Soccer ball... Weights..."

"No, I don't need any of that. And I already have my bike here, so that's all set." Ryan had ridden his bike to school that morning and it was currently sitting in the back of Sam's SUV.

"What about a suit?"

"I didn't have my own suits until later. I was still wearing Seth's back then."

"All right. Anything else you can think of?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Great. I'll be right over with your stuff."

"OK."

Ryan hung up the phone with Sandy and headed back into the house to be with what was his new family, for the weekend, anyway.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	14. A Weird Day

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 14 **

Ryan was awake early on Friday morning. It wasn't time to get up and get ready for school yet, so he lay in bed in the pool house, staring up at the ceiling. It was weird. It was familiar and yet not quite so familiar. The Reeses' pool house was laid out the same as the Cohens', with the bathroom, and the mini-kitchen, and the three walls made of windows. But the decor was completely different, and the Reeses' pool house was all one one level -- there were no stairs inside. The bed was a pull-out sofa bed and was in the middle of the room, approximately in the same place as the one at the Cohens'.

Ryan couldn't get back to sleep. He kept trying to talk himself out of what he was feeling, but it wasn't working. He was feeling _hurt_ that Sandy and Kirsten didn't want him at home, which was stupid because it was only because Seth was sick, and he didn't want to catch the flu anyway, and he agreed to stay here, and it was just for the weekend. Dispite all that, he kept feeling like the Cohens were rejecting him. Which made no sense and was totally irrational and illogical.

But Ryan knew from experience that how you felt about something often had nothing to do with logic or reality. But he had to cut off that line of thinking, because it would just lead to his mother, and he didn't want to go there.

So Ryan distracted himself by instead working on getting into character, into the role he was going to be playing this weekend. He imagined that he really lived here, that Sam and Angela and Maggie were his actual pseudo-siblings, and Henry and Gwen were his actual legal guardians. He imagined what the last month might have been like, living in this house with this family.

When it was time, Ryan got up and went through his normal morning routine in the pool house. It seemed like home. But then when he went inside for breakfast, it was the Reese family routine, not the Cohen family routine. It was just like it was when he was staying over here last month. He could easily imagine that he never left, that he'd been doing it this way for the entire time in between.

And Ryan went to school the same way in Sam's car, and went to the student lounge in the same way to get coffee. And like last time, Seth wasn't in school. Although this time it was because he was sick.

One thing which was different was in his western civilization class that he had with Marissa. He and Marissa were much closer now than they were a month ago, after all the drama with Luke and Julie, and with Ryan chasing Marissa down at Theresa and Eddie's engagement party in Chino. Ryan had seriously been thinking about getting back together with Marissa, but he hadn't quite made a move in that direction yet.

When Ryan walked into western civ and saw Marissa, he suddenly remembered that he was supposed to spend the afternoon and evening with her. Marissa was still fragile after finding out about Luke and her mother, and Ryan and Summer and Seth didn't want to leave Marissa alone for too long a time. Plus, of course, Ryan had wanted to stay away from home and sick Seth. Ryan couldn't believe that he'd totally forgotten about this yesterday, in all the excitement.

The plan was for Ryan to be with Marissa today. Then Summer wanted girl-time with her on Saturday, since Seth was sick and she didn't want to get the flu, either. Then Sunday being Easter, Marissa was spending it with her family. So Ryan _was_ free to spend the weekend at Sam's, but he had promised Marissa to spend today with her.

When Ryan sat down next to Marissa, she smiled at him and asked, "So, we're still on for after school, right?"

"Um... actually... I need to talk to you about that."

Marissa's smile faded. "Why? Did something happen?"

"It's just... Last night I arranged to spend the weekend at Sam's, you know, to stay out of the house and away from Seth? And I'm not sure what the plan for today is. I'll have to check and get back to you, OK?"

Ryan didn't mention to Marissa about the plan to do a practical joke, or whatever you want to call it, on Sam's uncle. It was just too weird and hard to explain.

Marissa looked a little disappointed. She sighed. "Yeah, OK."

Ryan smiled at her and wanted to reassure her, but Mr. Bendis started class and they couldn't talk any more.

When Ryan got to pre-calc, he sat down in his usual seat next to Sam and brought up the topic.

"Hey, Sam, are there any plans for today, you know, after school or this evening, like with your parents or anything?"

"Not that I know of, why?"

"Good. I told Marissa I'd spent the day with her."

"Did you tell my parents?"

"No. I forgot about it yesterday, with everything that happened."

"You should tell them before you go." Ryan rolled his eyes. Sam saw that. "Come on, man, you know that they always want to know where we go. You don't want a repeat of last time, right? Besides, you can think of it as practice, like as if you really lived with us. You can call my Mom at lunch."

Ryan sighed. It was a little ridiculous, telling the parental units wherever you went, but Sam was right about if he really lived with them.

"Yeah, OK, I guess." But Ryan wasn't sure what he'd do if Gwen said _no_.

So before lunch, Ryan borrowed Sam's cell phone and called Gwen.

"Hi, Sam --" Gwen must have seen Sam's cell number on the caller id.

"Uh, no, it's Ryan."

"Oh, hi, Ryan, is something up?"

"Um, yeah, um, I was going to go over Marissa's house after school. Sam thought I should let you know."

"Oh, OK, that should be OK. What time were you planning on coming home? In time for dinner?" OK, that sounded weird, Gwen calling their house _home_.

"Actually, I was going to have dinner with Marissa."

"If you don't mind, I'd rather if you had dinner with us. We still have some stuff to discuss about our plans for the weekend. And if you were living with us, we'd prefer to have you home for dinner, unless there's something important, or unless it is a date..."

"Um, no, Marissa and I aren't dating right now."

Gwen and Henry knew that Ryan had been dating Marissa earlier in the year. They had met Marissa, along with the rest of the gang, since they were all friends with Sam, and as usual Gwen and Henry wanted to meet all of their kids' friends.

"OK, so, what do you think of going to Marissa's in the afternoon and then coming back to our house in time for dinner? Say, 6 O'Clock?"

Ryan thought about it. Marissa's Dad should be home by then, so she wouldn't be home alone for too long. "I guess that would be OK."

"Great. We'll see you for dinner, then."

"OK."

Ryan hung up the phone and handed it back to Sam. OK, that was just weird. He just asked someone who wasn't his parent or guardian for permission to hang out with his almost-girlfriend. It had been a very weird Friday.

But Ryan did as he was asked. He went home with Marissa and hung out with her at her Dad's townhouse, then headed back to the Reeses' in time for dinner at 6 O'Clock. During dinner, they all talked over some more details of the plan for the weekend. And Henry reminded Ryan of the family rules that he learned the last time he was there, and would know very well if he'd been living with their family for the last month.

After dinner, Gwen had a proposal for Ryan.

"Ryan, I'm going food shopping to get what we'll need for the weekend. Why don't you come with me?"

Ryan was quite surprised. "Me?"

"Yeah. You. We also need to get food that you like, you know, like we'd have if you lived here. Come on, it'll be fun."

Ryan wasn't quite sure what to make of this. Spending time alone with Gwen? In public? Add another weirdness to this day. Kirsten never asked him to go food shopping with her. Usually she just went alone.

Gwen grabbed her car keys. She wasn't about to take _no_ for an answer. "Let's go, Ryan. We can let Henry and Sam and Angela clean up the dishes."

Ryan glanced at Sam, who shrugged. So Ryan shrugged too, and followed Gwen out the door.

At the supermarket, Gwen got all the stuff that they'd need for Easter dinner, and the foods that she knew Nathan and Beverly would want. Ryan reluctantly let her know what stuff he liked, and she added them to her cart. Ryan was surprised when Gwen picked up ice cream, hot fudge sauce, whipped cream, and other sundae fixings.

Ryan looked at Gwen, jokingly accusing her of breaking her own rules. "Sundaes? What would Henry say?"

Gwen laughed. "We do this every year. It's a special occasion. Henry and I are not totally inflexible. Besides, ice cream doesn't really count as junk food. It's food for the soul."

Ryan smiled back at her.

On their way out, Ryan finally got fed up with all the looks that the two of them had been getting the entire time they were there. He stared back at a particularly rude twentysomething guy, and almost said something, but Gwen gently put her hand on his arm and stopped him.

"Just ignore them. We -- our whole family -- we get looks all the time, you know, living here like we do. I tell Sam and Angela just to ignore them."

Ryan looked at Gwen. "Yeah. I get looks, too. You know, if people know who I am."

"I can imagine. Well, let them look. There's nothing you can do about it anyway, and getting into an argument or fistfight will only make things worse."

Ryan nodded. He could agree with her, to a point. If it was just something random, then, fine, just ignore them. But at school, or with other people you ran into all the time, if you ignored them, usually they didn't go away, often it got worse until you were forced to make them stop. But he didn't want to tell Gwen that.

When they got home and Ryan helped Gwen put everything away, Ryan had to admit it was kind of fun, spending time with Gwen. Weird, but good. She was a nice lady.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	15. The Aunt and Uncle Arrive

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 15 **

On Saturday morning, Henry woke up to little Maggie snuggled against him. He smiled and put his arm around her. He was glad that she hadn't been going out to the pool house to sleep in Ryan's bed. It was fine when Ryan was staying in the guest room last time, but he didn't want Maggie going outside the house to the pool house at night, even if it was just in the back yard. He told her not to go out there, and she listened, but she was just 3 years old. He knew that just because you told a 3-year-old something didn't mean they'd do it. He was glad that she did it this time.

Henry gently disengaged from his daughter and got up. He got dressed and headed out to the kitchen to start breakfast, letting his wife sleep a little bit longer. As he started the coffee he looked out towards the pool house where Ryan was staying. He wasn't sure how this weekend was going to go, trying to fool Nathan into believing that they had taken in Ryan. It was kind of nice having Ryan here, though. Maybe the reason why they hadn't found a teenager to live with them in six months of trying was because they were looking for another Ryan. That was something to think about.

As each member of the family, plus one, made their way into the kitchen for breakfast, Henry greeted each one with a smile and a "Good Morning." Except for Gwen, of course, who got a kiss. Then they all sat down to breakfast.

Henry told the kids, "I was thinking about how we should do this. I think it would work best if you kids go out for a while with Ryan, and so you're out when Uncle Nathan and Aunt Beverly arrive. That will give your mother and me time to tell them about Ryan. And then when you get back, it will be a surprise."

Ryan and Sam and Angela looked at each other and nodded their heads and said, "Sure."

Henry explained to Ryan, "Nathan and Beverly live about 4 hours from here. They usually get here in the middle of the day, like around noon or 1 O'Clock."

Sam came in with an idea, "Yeah, we can go down to the pier or something and have lunch."

"Sounds good, Sam. Make sure you bring your cell phone with you. We'll call when your Aunt and Uncle get here."

"OK."

After breakfast, they all helped clean up the kitchen and do a few final chores around the house in preparation for their visitors, although most of it was taken care of by their housekeeper Manuela yesterday.

As it approached late morning, the teenagers prepared to go out. Henry took out his wallet and handed Sam then Angela some money for lunch and whatnot. They took it without hesitation. "Thanks, Dad."

Henry tried to hand Ryan money, too, but he refused to take it. "No, thanks, Mr. Reese. I'm fine."

"Henry."

"Right, Henry."

Sam told Ryan, "Take it, man. How often do you get the parental units handing you money?"

"No, that's OK."

Henry tried to give it to him again. "Go ahead, Ryan. I'm the one sending you guys out to buy lunch. The least I can do is pay for it."

Henry wasn't sure if Ryan would take it or not. Sandy had told him how Ryan had insisted upon getting a minimum-wage job last summer because he didn't like to take their money. Henry thought that was admirable, but maybe Ryan was taking it a little too far. He was still a kid. He needed the financial support of adults. He thought it was good that Sandy and Kirsten hadn't let Ryan work during school. Kids needed to focus on their school work during the school year, especially in a demanding school like Harbor.

Henry smiled when Ryan finally took the money and shoved it into his pocket, looking a little embarrassed. Henry herded the three teens out the door quickly, trying to keep Ryan's embarrassment to a minimum and to make sure he didn't have time to change his mind and give the money back.

Once the kids were gone, Henry and Gwen settled down to wait for Nathan and Beverly. They showed up as expected a couple of hours later. Henry and Gwen and Maggie met them at the door and exchanged hugs all around.

Gwen told them, "Come in, come in, how was your trip? You must be starving. Come into the kitchen and I'll get lunch ready."

Gwen and Beverly headed towards the kitchen, chatting about the trip. Henry picked up Maggie.

Nathan picked up his and his wife's bags. "I'll be with you ladies in a minute. I just want to put our bags in the pool house first."

Before Nathan could start towards the back yard, Henry told him, "Actually, you can't stay in the pool house this time. We have the guest room all set up for you."

Nathan nodded and turned towards the stairs instead. Henry followed him with Maggie. It was time for Maggie's nap. She already had her lunch.

On the way up, Nathan asked Henry, "Is there something wrong with the pool house?"

"Um, no, nothing's wrong. We, uh, we have a surprise for you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, just let me put Maggie down for her nap, and I'll meet you in the kitchen and Gwen and I will let you in on it." Nathan nodded.

When they got upstairs, Nathan headed for the guest room, and Henry took Maggie into her bedroom. After he put Maggie down on her bed and closed the door, he quietly took out his cell phone and called Sam.

"Hey, Dad."

"Hey, Sam. So your Aunt and Uncle are here." Henry talked as quietly as he could, while making sure that Sam could hear him. He didn't want Nathan to overhear.

"OK, good, so you want us to head back now?"

"Why don't you give us about half an hour. That will give us time to eat lunch and talk to them about Ryan."

"OK."

"Have you guys had your lunch yet?"

"Um, yeah."

Henry thought his son's voice sounded a little strained. "Sam, is something wrong? You sound a little funny."

"Um, no, nothing's wrong. We'll see you in 30 minutes."

Then Sam hung up. Henry wasn't sure if he believed Sam. It sounded like there was something wrong. Well, he'd just have to ask Sam about it when they got back. Henry went ahead and put Maggie down for her nap and went downstairs for lunch.

Over lunch, Gwen and Henry told Nathan and Beverly the story that they had planned, about how Ryan was the boy that Gwen had told Nathan about in March. Ryan was 16, he stayed in the pool house, they had gotten him through their lawyer Sandy Cohen, who was also Ryan's lawyer, he'd been there for a month, and the rest of it. They intentionally didn't mention what race Ryan was, letting Nathan and Beverly make assumptions. They wanted to see their faces when Ryan walked through the door with Sam and Angela.

By the time they finished with the story, and answering questions, the four of them were relaxing in the livingroom, drinking coffee. They were chatting about other things when the front door opened. The kids were home. Henry put down his coffe and stood up. Sam and Angela came in first, followed by Ryan, who closed the door behind them.

Henry smiled at the kids. "Hey, guys, you're back."

As soon as Ryan turned around, Henry's smile faded. He could see what Sam didn't want to tell him over the phone. Henry forgot about Nathan and Beverly and came forward to meet Ryan, who also stepped forward, in front of Sam and Angela.

"Ryan, what happened to your face?"

Ryan looked down. He clearly had a black eye. Henry's gaze went down to Ryan's right hand. It was scraped and bruised. He looked back up at Ryan's face.

"You got into a fight? What did we say about fighting?"

Sam jumped to Ryan's defense. "Dad, it was totally not his fault."

And Angela jumped in, "Yeah, Dad, these guys were hassling us, and they blocked our way --"

Ryan stopped her. He put out his hands a little to the side, in front of Sam and Angela, who were at this point on either side of and a little behind him.

"Guys, it's OK. I got this."

Henry looked closely at Sam and Angela. "Are you two all right?"

Before Sam or Angela could answer, Ryan did. "It was just me."

Henry looked back at Ryan, who was looking at him by now. He wasn't looking down any more. He was looking straight into Henry's eyes. Henry nodded at Ryan, glad that he was taking responsibility. But Henry was not looking forward to explaining to Sandy that they let Ryan get into a fight while he was staying with them.

Henry took a deep breath. "Ryan, why don't you go into the kitchen and put some ice on that? I'll be with you in a few minutes."

Ryan lowered his eyes and blinked a few times, then he nodded and headed for the kitchen, followed closely by Sam and Angela.

Henry sighed and turned around. Gwen, Beverly, and Nathan were all standing up. Beverly and Nathan were staring at the backs of the kids, who quickly went out of sight into the kitchen. Nathan turned towards Henry.

"That was Ryan?"

"Yes, Nathan, that was Ryan."

"I can't believe it."

When Nathan turned back to look in the direction of the kitchen, Henry realized that maybe Ryan getting into a fight was a blessing in disguise. His interaction with Ryan just now had apparently convinced Nathan that Ryan was really their foster son, or rather _ward_ to be more accurate. He had just treated Ryan like he was, and Ryan had responded that way.

Henry turned to look in the direction of the kitchen himself. Now he'd have to figure out what he could say to Ryan, especially since he wasn't really his guardian.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	16. Facing The Music

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 16 **

In the kitchen, Sam helped Ryan put together a bag with ice in it. Ryan sat down at the kitchen island and put the bag of ice on his hand. Right now his hand hurt worse than his eye. Ryan sighed and closed his eyes. This was just great. He was glad that neither Sam nor Angela seemed to know what to say to him and just sat there with him silently, waiting for Henry to come in and yell at him.

After a few minutes, Ryan heard footsteps and opened his eyes. All of the adults were coming into the kitchen. Henry walked over to Ryan.

"Why don't we go out to the pool house?"

Without looking at anybody, Ryan took his bag of ice, which he had moved to his eye a minute ago, and followed Henry into the pool house. He sat down on the end of the bed, and Henry sat down in a chair. It was very similar to when he had his little chats with Sandy in his own pool house at home. But he didn't know what to expect from Henry.

After sitting down, Ryan laid the bag of ice on the back of his right hand. Henry pointed to it.

"Shouldn't that be on your eye?"

"I'm going back and forth."

Henry nodded. Then he took a deep breath and looked straight at Ryan. He said, calmly, "Would you tell me what happened?"

Ryan nodded and looked out the window at the pool. "Sam, Angela, and I were at the pier. We were sitting on a bench, minding our own business, eating our lunch and talking. These three water polo guys came by and started making comments. We tried to just ignore them, like all of you guys, you and Sandy and Kirsten, tell us to do. They didn't stop. We tried to just get up and walk away, but they blocked our path."

Ryan took a deep breath and looked at Henry. "They wouldn't move, and they were making nasty comments about Angela..." Ryan looked down. "So... I punched the guy who was the biggest jerk. Then the second guy punched me, so I punched him back. Then Sam grabbed me and we got out of there."

Ryan looked back at Henry. "That's it."

Henry nodded then leaned forward. "I know I'm not your parent or your guardian, but I am **a** parent, and I'd like to give you a little parental advice."

Ryan nodded. Henry turned out to be a lot like Sandy.

Henry sat back and looked like he was lost in thought for a moment. Then he started lecturing. "I can understand having to defend yourself, or your friends, if you are getting attacked physically. But if it is just comments, there is really no excuse for violence." Henry paused. "I know, I know, you've heard this before."

Ryan shrugged and looked back out at the pool. Of course he'd been lectured about his fighting before -- by Sandy, and before that by school principals and guidance counselors.

Henry continued, "Violence should really be the last resort. There are other ways to deal with confrontations. I applaud your efforts to try to ignore the comments and to try to walk away, but I'm thinking that you didn't try hard enough to avoid fighting. In the end, you got mad, right? Then you started the fight. You're the one who made it physical, not them."

When Henry paused, Ryan glanced at Henry, briefly, then looked away again. Yes, he got mad, who wouldn't?

Henry sat back and regarded Ryan for a few moments, until Ryan looked at him. "You know I'm going to have to tell Sandy, right?"

Ryan nodded, again, and looked away, again. Sandy was not going to be happy, after what Sandy told him after he attacked Oliver, about thinking it through and talking to someone before he raised his fists. And then with the fight with Eddie, right there at the house, although Ryan didn't start that, and he didn't throw any punches in that fight, intentionally.

After a few moments of silence, Henry took a quick look back at the main house, then back at Ryan. "Well, if we still want to go through with this charade with Nathan -- he's going to expect me to punish you for this fight."

Ryan turned back to look at Henry and raised his eyebrows.

Henry quickly added, "You know, just pretend. It would be up to Sandy to do anything for real. I have an idea -- if you still want to go through with this charade. I have to tell you, the way you and I interacted in the livingroom I think convinced him that you live with us."

Ryan gave Henry a half-smile. "Yeah, let's do it."

"Here's what I was thinking -- you're not planning on going anywhere the rest of today or tomorrow, right? What if we tell Nathan, you know, if he asks, that I've grounded you for the rest of the weekend? We could pretend that you were going to go out with Marissa tonight, and I told you that you couldn't because of the fight. How's that sound?"

Ryan thought about it. It didn't really change anything. He wasn't going anywhere anyway. So he told Henry, "Sure. That's fine."

Henry gave Ryan a little smile and stood up. "OK. Well. Why don't you relax out here and put the ice on your hand or eye or whatever, for as long as you like. Come in when you're ready." Then Henry headed back into the house, closing the pool house door behind him.

After Henry was gone, Ryan sighed and fell back on the bed. He moved the bag of ice up from his hand to his eye and thought about what Henry said. After a few minutes, Ryan sat up on the bed and reached for the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Sandy, it's me."

"Hey, kid, how's it going over there? How's the plan going?"

"The plan's going good, but, um, I think I'm in a little bit of trouble."

Ryan could hear Sandy sigh. "What happened?"

So Ryan relayed to Sandy the story of what happened at the pier, like he told it to Henry. At the end of the story, Sandy sighed again.

"You know you just violated your probation, right? Because you threw the first punch?"

Ryan lay back on the bed. "Yeah, I know."

"What were you thinking? Last time, Oliver didn't press charges. What about this time?"

"These guys aren't going to press charges, either."

"Yes, fortunately, I agree. So you should be OK. But, Ryan, you can't afford to keep doing this, starting fights."

"I know, I know."

"All right. We'll talk about this when you get home. Are you still planning on staying there for the weekend?"

"I was planning to, unless you want me to come home."

"No, go ahead and stay there. Our talk can wait. Seth is still sick."

"How is Seth?"

"Sicker than he was yesterday, if you can believe that. But he'll be fine."

Just then, Henry opened the pool house door. Ryan sat up.

"Hey, Ryan, we're making sundaes --" Then he saw that Ryan was on the phone. "Who are you talking to?"

"Sandy."

Henry looked surprised. "Oh."

"Yeah, I told him about the fight."

Henry nodded. Ryan could hear Sandy, "Ryan, who's that?"

Ryan went back to the phone. "Henry."

Sandy and Henry both said, at the same time, "Let me talk to him."

Ryan smiled at that. He said to both, "Sure."

Ryan got up and handed the phone to Henry, then headed into the house. He didn't really want to hear what Henry had to say to Sandy, and vice versa, about him.

When Ryan entered the kitchen, he found Sam and his Uncle Nathan sitting at the table, and Gwen was putting out the sundae stuff.

Gwen smiled when she saw Ryan. "Hi, Ryan. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, thanks."

"We're having our sundaes now."

"Yeah, Henry told me."

"Where is Henry?"

"On the phone with Sandy."

Gwen turned to Nathan, explaining, "That's Sandy Cohen. We told you about him. He's Ryan's lawyer. And our friend."

Sam spoke up, "What, did my Dad call him?"

"No, I did... I, um, I kind of violated my probation when I threw the first punch today."

Sam sat up straight, looking alarmed. "What?"

Gwen said, "Oh, Ryan --"

Ryan quickly reassured her, "Don't worry, um, Gwen. Sandy said I'll be OK if those guys don't press charges, which they won't. Those kind of guys never do."

"You know, you really shouldn't be fighting in the first place..."

"Yeah, I know."

Gwen chuckled. "You probably already heard about this from Henry."

Ryan nodded. "And Sandy."

Uncle Nathan took the opportunity to make a snide comment to Ryan. "Sounds like you have a lot of experience with this." He turned to Gwen. "That's what you get for allowing juvenile delinquents in your house."

Gwen said, quickly, "Sam, Ryan, why don't you go get Maggie, Angela, and Aunt Beverly. They're upstairs. Let them know about the sundaes."

Sam stood up. "Sure, Mom." He went over to Ryan and started to kind of push him out of the kitchen. "Come on, Ryan."

As soon as they were out of the kitchen, Ryan could hear Gwen chewing out her brother about being civil to members of her family.

On the way up the stairs, Sam said to Ryan, "Sorry about my uncle, man."

"That's OK. It reminds me of Seth's grandfather, Caleb. He doesn't like me in the family, either."

"The plan seems to be working, though. He seems to really think you live here."

"Yeah."

When they got upstairs, Sam and Ryan found Maggie, Angela, and their Aunt Beverly in Maggie's room and told them about the sundaes, and all five of them headed down to the kitchen to partake of them.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	17. Easter Eve

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 17 **

Later that day, after dinner, Sam, Angela, and Ryan were in the den, using some of their daily allotment of video game time. Henry, Gwen, Nathan, and Beverly met in the livingroom, after getting ready in their respective bedrooms. They were all dressed up in formalwear because they were going out to the opera in L.A. for the evening. They headed to the den to have some last words with the kids before they went out.

Ryan looked up as he heard the adults coming down the hallway. He had to smile when he saw them. They all looked pretty great in their fancy clothes. He hadn't seen such clothes since cotillion, where the debutantes wore the long white dresses with gloves and and their escorts wore tuxedos. Gwen and Beverly were wearing long formal dresses, in green and blue, respectively. Henry and Nathan were wearing tuxes, with cummerbunds that complemented their wives' dresses.

Ryan noticed that Gwen was wearing her special diamond necklace with the five black diamonds which represented the five members of the Reese family. Angela had been right what she said when she showed Ryan that necklace the first time he came to this house, back at the beginning of the school year -- it _was_ pretty cool. He wondered when Henry and Gwen finally found a kid to come stay with them, if Gwen would have another black diamond put in to represent him or her.

When the four adults got to the den, they stopped in the entranceway. Gwen addressed the three teens.

"OK, so, Maggie's already been put to bed. Keep an ear out for her, she didn't like going to bed early. If she gets up, just put her back in bed."

Henry added, "You kids behave yourselves and don't stay up too late, since we all have to get up early in the morning. All of the emergency numbers are on the fridge. If you need anything, we have our cell phones. But please, don't call unless it is an emergency."

Sam smiled indulgently at his parents and answered for all of the teens. "Yes, yes, we got it. We'll be fine. Maggie'll be fine. Get going already and have a good time. Don't worry about us."

The adults finally headed towards the door, with one final word from Gwen, "Don't eat all the ice cream!"

"Bye, Mom!"

After they left, Ryan turned to Sam. He was a little confused about something.

"Getting up early in the morning? Why are we getting up early? How early?"

"For church."

"Church?"

"Yeah, you know, Easter sunrise service? You've never heard of it?"

"Well, yeah, I've heard of it, I just never... thought about it." Ryan looked from Sam to Angela. "We really have to be at church at sunrise?"

Angela laughed. "Of course, silly. That's why they call it a sunrise service."

Ryan thought for a moment. "Maybe I shouldn't go."

Sam replied, "What? Of course you're going. If we have to get up at some ungodly hour, so do you."

Angela added, "Besides, if you were really like our brother, you'd have to go."

Ryan nodded. She did have a point. "OK, yeah, I guess. But -- what about clothes? What do we have to wear to this thing? Do we have to dress up?"

Sam told him, "Yeah. Normally for church on normal Sundays, we don't really get very dressed up. Well, you've seen that. This is California, after all." Ryan nodded. He remembered from when he stayed over last month. "But Easter is different. In our... community... it's traditional to buy new clothes for Easter. I've got a new suit --"

Angela was practically jumping up and down. "And I've got this cool new dress. Do you want to see?"

"Angela, Ryan doesn't want to see your dress."

Angela looked disappointed, so Ryan told her, "I'll see it tomorrow." She lit right up.

Sam scowled at his sister a little, then finished what he was saying to Ryan. "As I was saying -- yeah, we get dressed up in suits and stuff for Easter."

Ryan remembered, "I didn't bring any of my suits with me."

"Hey, you can wear one of mine. We're about the same size, right?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"OK, then, come on."

Sam led Ryan up to his room for Ryan to try on his suits. They were right, they were about the same size. After trying on a couple, Ryan found one that fit him the best. He also had to borrow a dress shirt and tie, plus dress socks and shoes. It was a good thing that Sam just got a new pair. After changing back into his own clothes, Ryan took the suit and accessories that he was borrowing out to the pool house for the morning.

When Ryan came back inside the house, he found Sam and Angela taking stuff out of the hall closet.

"Hey, guys, what are you doing?"

Angela said, "Putting out the Easter decorations."

"Decorations?"

Sam explained, as he continued to take stuff out of the closet and hand it to Angela to carry to the livingroom. "Yeah, we do it every year. Our parents used to do it for us when we were little. It's kind of like Christmas -- we'd wake up on Easter morning and see all the decorations. Recently, we've been helping our parents put it all out for Maggie."

"But this year, you're doing it by yourselves, since your parents went out?"

"Right."

"Cool."

Ryan helped finish carrying the various boxes and bags into the livingroom. Once it was all there, the three of them sat down on the floor and started pulling stuff out. Ryan saw Easter baskets, and stuffed animals, and large hollow plastic eggs, and fake grass for the baskets, stuff like that.

Sam stood up and said to Ryan, "Come on, man, help me get the eggs."

Ryan stood up and followed Sam. "Eggs?"

"You know, colored eggs? Hard-boiled, colored eggs?"

"Oh, right."

"Yeah, we colored them last weekend, the whole family. You should have seen my Mom, she was in heaven. She loves this stuff."

Ryan had to smile. He could imagine. He could just see the five of them, around the kitchen island, with little Maggie squealing at every color on every egg. It sounded like a lot of fun. Now he wished he'd been here last weekend, too. Except of course he wouldn't have wanted to miss Passover with Sandy's mother.

Ryan followed Sam out to the garage, where they had a backup refrigerator, for when the one in the kitchen got too full. Sam opened the fridge door and pulled out an egg carton and handed it to Ryan, then grabbed two more which he carried himself. Ryan opened up the carton to see various colored eggs. Some were solid color, with little pictures of bunnies and stuff on the side. Some were streaked with multi-colors. They looked really cool.

When Ryan and Sam got back to the livingroom with their bounty, Ryan saw Angela coming out of the kitchen carrying her own booty: a bag of jelly beans, a bag of chocolate eggs, and a package of Peeps, the yellow bunny ones. Ryan was a little surprised that they even had candy, what with the Reeses' policy on junk food in the house. But after he thought about it, he figured it was like the sundaes -- it was a once-a-year special occasion. And besides, given the number of people to eat the candy, they really didn't buy very much. Probably just enough to make the kids think they weren't missing out, but not enough to rot their teeth, or whatever the usual reason is that parents don't want their kids to eat candy. The Reeses were clever that way.

Sam and Angela started setting everything out on display, putting the grass in the baskets, topped with the colored eggs and candy, etc. Ryan helped, as he was directed.

They were interrupted by the phone ringing. Sam went to get it. He came back with the cordless phone in his hand and held it out to Ryan. "It's for you. It's Marissa."

Ryan took the phone and went outside through the livingroom french doors, for privacy. "Hey, Marissa."

"Hey, Ryan. Can you come over?"

"I thought you were with Summer today."

"She went home."

Ryan was concerned. "You're alone?" Marissa shouldn't be left alone.

"No, my Dad's here, but I just want to see you. And I'm bored."

Ryan was relieved that Marissa wasn't alone. And he wouldn't mind seeing her, too, but...

Ryan turned around to watch Sam and Angela continuing to put out the Easter decorations in the livingroom. 

... but he was having a lot of fun with Sam and Angela. And his hand and eye still hurt from the fight earlier. And it was kind of late to be going out, especially since he had to get up early in the morning. And besides, if he went out and stayed out too late, and got back after Henry and Gwen, it would blow the illusion that they were trying to do for Nathan and Beverly that Ryan was grounded.

Ryan had to figure out what to tell Marissa. He didn't want to hurt her feelings and just tell her that he didn't want to see her. He was still planning on getting back together with her soon. So he told her the first excuse he could think of.

"Sorry, I can't, I'm grounded."

"You're grounded? Why?"

"I got into a fight today."

"Are you OK?"

"I'm fine. Well, I have a black eye, and my hand hurts, but I'm fine."

"Wait, you're at the Reeses'. Did they ground you?"

"No, of course not, but Sandy knows about it, so..." That wasn't really a lie, exactly...

"Oh."

"Sorry."

Marissa sighed. "That's OK. If you're grounded, you're grounded."

"But, I'll see you Monday at school, right?"

"Yeah."

After Ryan hung up, he realized -- the fake evening with Marissa, that got fake cancelled, because of his fake grounding, just turned into a potential real evening with Marissa, that just got really cancelled, partially because of his fake grounding. Ryan had to smile about that. How exactly was this fake grounding different from really being grounded?

Ryan put the phone back in the kitchen and went to help Sam and Angela finish putting out the Easter decorations. The last item to be put out was wrapped in Easter-themed wrapping paper.

Ryan asked Angela, "What's that?"

"It's a stuffed bunny for Maggie. We used to get stuffed animals every year too, when we were kids."

Ryan nodded. Sounded like a nice tradition.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	18. Sunrise Service

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

* * *

** Chapter 18 **

Ryan was awakened by a soft woman's voice saying, "Ryan, it's time to get up."

In his half-asleep state, he was thinking it was Kirsten. As he turned over, he complained, "It's the middle of the night."

The woman laughed softly and turned on the light next to the bed. "It's 5 O'Clock and we have to get ready for church."

That woke Ryan up the rest of the way. He remembered it was Easter. And this must be Gwen. And he had to get up for the Easter sunrise service. He turned on his back and opened his eyes and looked up at Gwen.

Gwen smiled at him. "Happy Easter."

"Happy Easter."

Gwen leaned down a little and looked closer at his face. She looked concerned and reached out towards his black eye, without touching it.

"Does that hurt?"

"It's fine."

Gwen looked at Ryan skeptically. Ryan gave her a half-smile. "OK, it's sore, but it will be fine." He paused. "Sorry, you know, about showing up at your church with a black eye. I'm sure I'm going to make a great first impression on your friends."

"Don't worry about it, Ryan."

"You know, Kirsten has this great concealer stuff. I don't know if you --"

"I don't have any makeup for white skin."

"Of course, right, sorry." Gwen gave him a forgiving smile.

She looked over at the chair where Ryan had Sam's suit laying. "I see Sam loaned you some clothes. Sorry, I totally forgot to tell you to bring a suit."

"That's all right. Sam and I are the same size, so..."

Gwen nodded. "Well, come on, get up. You don't want to miss Maggie's face when she comes downstairs and sees all those decorations that you and Sam and Angela put out last night."

Gwen gave Ryan one last smile and left the pool house so he could get ready. After she left, Ryan sighed and threw back the covers. He went ahead and took his shower and got dressed into his borrowed suit. Then he headed into the kitchen. He found Henry there.

"Good morning, Ryan. Happy Easter."

"Happy Easter."

Henry gestured at the breakfast foods which were layed out on the kitchen table. "Help yourself to some juice and cereal. We're just going to have a quick mini-breakfast now before the service, then when we get home we always cook ourselves a full brunch."

"OK, thanks."

Ryan sat down at the table. As he poured himself some orange juice, he looked longingly at the coffee and wondered if he could get away with having some. Maybe he could sneak some later. While Ryan was eating his cereal, the next member of the family to appear in the kitchen was Angela.

Her father greeted her. "Happy Easter, Honey. You look gorgeous."

"Thanks, Dad."

When she saw Ryan there, she gave him a big smile and asked him, "What do you think?" Angela twirled around to show him her new dress.

Ryan gave Angela a smile back and nodded. "It's very pretty. It looks good on you."

Angela gave Ryan an even bigger smile and came to sit down at the table next to him.

After Angela, more family members came in for breakfast -- Sam, then Uncle Nathan and Aunt Beverly. They all greeted each other with _Happy Easter_ and sat down at the table to eat. Ryan noticed Nathan give him a look of slight disgust or something, like Ryan didn't belong there, but he didn't say anything.

When Henry was done eating, he got up. "I'm going to go see if Gwen is ready with Maggie." Then he left the kitchen.

The rest got up and headed for the livingroom to be there when Maggie came down the stairs and saw the decorations. They didn't have to wait long before Maggie came down the stairs accompanied by her parents. When she turned the corner on the landing and looked down into the livingroom, she squealed with delight and came running down the rest of the way. All of the family members smiled as they watched her go from one item to the next, looking at them and reaching out and touching them, saying things like "Ooh", "Ahh", and "Ducky!"

When she got to the wrapped gift, Angela was standing next to it. She squatted down and handed it to her little sister. "This is for you. Happy Easter."

Maggie squealed again and ripped open the paper. Then she saw the stuffed rabbit. "Bunny! Bunny!"

She hugged it tight then hugged her big sister. Everyone was smiling, enjoying the scene.

Uncle Nathan told Sam, "Sam, you and Angela did a great job with the decorations this year."

Sam replied, "Ryan helped too."

Nathan looked at Ryan briefly and just kind of grunted, like he was reluctantly acknowledging his contribution. Ryan turned and walked back into the kitchen, leaving the Reese family alone in the livingroom to enjoy the moment. While he was in the kitchen alone, he was hoping to sneak some coffee, but Gwen followed him in.

"Ryan, the livingroom looks great. You guys did a fantastic job."

Ryan gave Gwen a shy smile. "Sam and Angela did all the work. I just did what they told me."

"Either way. Good job."

"Thanks."

"Well, it's just about time to go, so..."

Gwen went over to the table and started picking up the juice and milk to put them away in the refrigerator. Ryan went over and helped put the cereal away in the cabinet, and put the glasses and bowls into the dishwasher. When they were done cleaning up, Gwen and Ryan joined the rest of the family in the livingroom and they all headed outside to the cars. Since there were eight of them, they were taking two cars.

Ryan was almost the last one out the front door, with just Sam behind him. Henry and Nathan walked together towards one of the cars, and Gwen and Beverly walked together towards the other car. Ryan and Sam heard Nathan say something to Henry on their way to the car about if they were sure they wanted Ryan to come to their church. Sam and Ryan exchanged a look, then Sam gently pushed Ryan over towards his mother's car, giving Angela a look, which she understood and took Maggie and headed towards their father's car.

In the car, Ryan looked out the window and listened to the two women gossipping in the front seat. He had to smile to himself. From listening to them, he'd know everything about everyone at this church before he even got there. As they kept driving, Ryan wondered which church they were going to. It occurred to him that there might be people there who knew him, and might blow the Reeses' whole practical joke thing they had going. He wondered why they weren't worried about that.

He got his answer when he saw that they were leaving Newport Beach. He was surprised and wondered why the Reeses went to a neighboring town to go to church, when there were several in Newport. He got his answer to _that_ when they arrived at the church and parked in the parking lot. Ryan could see some of the other members of the church getting out of their cars and heading inside. This was a black church. Ryan thought it was kind of pathetic that the Reeses had to leave Newport to find a black church.

The Reeses parked their cars and the eight of them headed inside. Ryan followed the rest of them through the church and outside into the back lawn, where folding chairs were set up with a portable lectern in the front. Ryan sat down with the rest of the Reeses. By the time they got there, the chairs were mostly full and the service was about to begin. Ryan looked around and saw that the congregation was mostly black, with a handful of non-black people there. Watching them, they all looked like they were in interracial relationships, and so were presumably brought here by their black spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend.

The service started and Ryan listened, and watched the sun rise. It was kind of cool. Ryan was sitting next to Maggie and during the service, she climbed up on his lap. He put his arms around her and she snuggled in, still holding her new stuffed bunny tightly. By the end of the service, she was half asleep. After the service was over, everyone but Ryan and Maggie stood up and started socializing.

Gwen came over and reached out to take Maggie from Ryan. "I'll take her."

"That's OK, I got her." Gwen hestitated. Ryan added, "She's half asleep. You go ahead, go see your friends. I'll watch her."

Gwen looked around a little, then back at Ryan. "If you're sure..."

Ryan gave her a little smile. "Yeah. Go."

"OK. Thanks, Ryan."

Ryan nodded at Gwen, and she moved off leaving Ryan sitting there alone, with Maggie. He was glad to have an excuse to not have to socialize. He didn't know anybody here, other than the Reeses of course. He wasn't sure what Henry and Gwen were going to tell their friends about him, and he didn't want to try and tell the fake story to anyone he met here. So he was happy to just sit here with Maggie.

After a short time, Ryan was joined by Angela, and was treated to one of her monologues all about the past years' sunrise services, and about Sunday school, and the other members of the congregation, and so on. Ryan listened and made the appropriate encouraging responses in the right places.

At one point, a woman came over to them. She looked like she was a member of the congregation, and she obviously knew the Reeses.

"Happy Easter, Angela."

"Happy Easter."

She leaned over towards Maggie. "And little Maggie, how are you this morning?"

Maggie lifted her head off of Ryan's shoulder for a moment and gave the woman a sleepy smile, then put her head back down.

The woman asked Angela, indicating Ryan, "And who's this? Your boyfriend?"

Angela ducked her head and blushed. At least Ryan assumed she was blushing. He couldn't really see it. She answered, "Um... no... this is Ryan... he's, um..."

Ryan helped her out. "I'm staying with Angela's family."

Ryan figured that was non-specific enough to cover both the truth that he was staying just for the weekend, and the fake story that he was now living with them.

The woman looked a little surprised, but not as much as Ryan expected. Maybe she knew about their search for a kid to take in.

"Oh. Well, the Reeses are very nice people."

Ryan nodded. "Yes, they are."

The woman nodded back and the left. Ryan went back to just holding Maggie and listening to Angela talk. Eventually, the post-service socializing was over and Gwen came and got Maggie and they all headed back to the Reeses' house.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	19. Brunch

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

Author's Notes: I wanted the uncle to be more mean to Ryan, but I couldn't pull it off. I guess my mind doesn't work that way. I couldn't come up with really mean things for him to say. Maybe next time I need a mean co-writer :-)

* * *

** Chapter 19 **

After the extended Reese family got back to the house from church, they all changed out of their nice new church clothes. Then Gwen headed into the kitchen to cook Easter brunch for the family. She was soon joined by her sister-in-law Beverly.

Over the years, Gwen had tried to interest her children in learning how to cook, but Sam was not interested, and Angela, well, she had some enthusiasm but unfortunately not much skill. And Gwen, although she hated to think this of her daughter, found that Angela's constant chatter while cooking drove her crazy. Gwen hoped that she'd have better luck with Maggie, who already showed some interest, but was too young yet to really help. So for the last couple years, it had just been her and Beverly to make the brunch.

This year, however, while the two women were working away in the kitchen, someone new joined them.

"Hey." Gwen looked up from the stove and saw Ryan standing at the far end of the kitchen island. He must have just come in from the pool house. Ryan asked Gwen, "Want some help?"

Gwen smiled at him. "That would be great. How about if you make your omelets?" Ryan nodded. Gwen told Beverly. "Ryan makes the best omelets."

Beverly looked at Ryan, who was heading towards the refrigerator to get out the omelet fixings. "You like to cook, Ryan?"

Ryan closed the fridge door with his hands full and headed for the kitchen island. "Yeah. Well, mostly breakfast. I also do a mean grilled cheese. My specialty." Ryan smiled and Beverly smiled back.

"Where'd you learn to cook? Did your mother teach you?"

Gwen knew that was a mistake as soon as Beverly said it. She looked at Ryan who already had his head down, concentrating on the food on the counter in front of him, avoiding looking at either of the women.

"Uh... No... Uh... My Mom's not much of a cook." Without looking up, Ryan started working on preparing his omelet ingredients. He looked very uncomfortable.

Gwen looked at Beverly, who by now was looking back at her with a puzzled look on her face. Gwen shook her head a little, hoping that Beverly would understand that she shouldn't ask Ryan anything about his family or his past. Beverly nodded, and after a quick glance at Ryan, went back to her own work.

Gwen, Beverly, and Ryan worked in silence for a while as they all concentrated on preparing and cooking their part of the brunch. Eventually, Gwen and Beverly started in on some smalltalk. Ryan continued to work quietly. Gwen snuck a few glances over at him. She hoped that he wasn't too upset about the reference to his mother. She knew him well enough by now to know that his silence was normal for him, so she couldn't use it to tell if he was upset. He was a lot like Sam in that way.

Shortly, the cooks' quiet kitchen was invaded by the men, Henry and Nathan, loudly discussing sports -- baseball right at the moment since the season had just started.

"I'm telling you, Nathan, the Dodgers can make it to the playoffs this year."

"You really think they can get past the Giants? Barry Bonds? He's the best player in baseball."

"There's always the wildcard."

Gwen interrupted them. "Henry. Nathan. If you're going to talk sports, do it somewhere else. We're trying to work here."

The men split up and each went over to his wife, reaching over and picking up a piece of what she was working on and popping it into his mouth. Gwen slapped Henry's hand. Henry asked, "When it is going to be ready?"

"It will be ready faster if you two get out of our way."

Nathan grinned at his sister and kissed his wife on her cheek and turned to exit the kitchen with Henry. When he did, he came face to face with Ryan.

"Oh, Ryan." Nathan paused. "You cook?"

Gwen looked at Ryan, hoping that he didn't take that as an insult. Nathan was a little old-fashioned about cooking being a woman's job, and the tone that he used when he addressed Ryan was a little derogatory. Ryan did look somewhat ill-at-ease.

"Um, yeah."

Henry told Nathan, "Ryan makes a great breakfast." Then he told Ryan, "I see you're making your famous omelet. Looks wonderful."

Ryan smiled at Henry then ducked his head and turned around, away from the two men, and went back to work. Henry and Nathan left the kitchen and went back to talking about baseball.

"What about the Angels? They could make the playoffs."

"No way, Nathan. The A's are going to win that division. And what about the Mariners?"

* * *

When the brunch was close to being ready, Gwen sent Ryan out to gather up the rest of the family. As Ryan left the kitchen, he heard Henry and Nathan's voices coming from Henry's study, so he headed over there. However, as he got closer, he could hear that they were talking about him. He stopped outside the study and sat down on the steps leading up to the front door to eavesdrop, taking a page from Seth's book.

Ryan could hear Nathan saying, "That kid doesn't belong here."

"Nathan..."

"He's a juvenile delinquent, he gets into fights, and god knows what else. Aren't you afraid that he'll be a bad influence on Sam and Angela?"

"That's not why you don't like Ryan, and you know it. Come on, any kid that we take in is going to be similar -- have a history that may include trouble with the law; problems at home including abuse, neglect, abandonment; coming from an environment of violence. Comes with the territory. We told you all about this. Ryan's one of the more well-adjusted ones, actually."

Ryan was getting more and more uncomfortable as he was listening to this. How much did Henry know about him, anyway? He hoped that Henry was talking in generalities, not just about him. But he cringed at that phrase _well-adjusted_. It brought back all those bad memories of Oliver.

_"How amazing it is that you're so healthy. Well-adjusted. Considering."_

_"Considering?"_

It had taken everything he had to not beat the crap out of Oliver right then. Maybe if he had given in to his impulses then, things would have turned out better. Maybe things wouldn't have gotten so out of control. Ryan could feel himself getting angry all over again just thinking about it.. But he quickly tried to shake it off. There was no point in dwelling on it now. You couldn't change the past.

Ryan tuned back in to Nathan and Henry's conversation.

"Admit it, Nathan. It isn't Ryan's history that you don't like. It's his skin color."

"All right, Henry, you're right. I thought you and Gwen were looking for a black kid. There are so many out there that need homes, and so few black families out there to give them one. Ryan can find a home with a white family. Having him here -- now there's a black kid out there that's not going to get a home."

"Ryan was on his way to foster care, a group home. There are not a lot of white families looking to take in a 16-year-old white kid with a criminal record, either. But that's not the point. First of all, Ryan does fit in here, with us. Gwen and I care about him. He and Sam are best friends. Maggie adores him. And Angela has a crush on him."

_Wow._ Ryan hadn't heard it said like that before. And Henry and Gwen hadn't said that they cared about him. He wondered if Henry just made that up, for Nathan's benefit, as part of the charade.

Henry continued, "And second of all, we haven't given up looking to find a black kid. Maybe we can handle two at once, or even if not, Ryan will be 18 in a little over a year, and he'll graduate high school with Sam and the two of them will go off to college. At that point, there will be plenty of room here to take in another kid."

Ryan waited while there was silence. He guessed that maybe Nathan didn't know what to say to that.

After a moment, Ryan heard Henry say, "Well, let's go see if the ladies have brunch ready."

Ryan quickly got up and ran upstairs to get Sam, Angela, and Maggie and let them know that brunch was ready.

* * *

They all sat down at the dining room table for brunch. They were in the dining room instead of the kitchen because the table in there could be expanded to seat eight people while the kitchen table could only seat six. They all praised the skills of the cooks for the delicious food. As last time, Ryan was a little embarrassed about the compliments directed his way.

The brunch-time conversation consisted of the usual family stuff about work and school and absent family members, like Uncle Nathan and Aunt Beverly's sons. Ryan generally stayed out of it, since it wasn't his family. So he was a little surprised when a question was directed his way when everyone was almost finished with their meal.

The conversation around the table had been concentrating on Sam and Angela's schoolwork, when Beverly addressed Ryan. Maybe she was trying to include him in the conversation, make him feel more like part of the family. As far as Ryan could tell, she didn't have a problem with him being there, not like her husband did.

"So, Ryan." Ryan looked at Beverly, a little surprised. "You're 16, right? Are you a sophomore or a junior?"

Ryan took a quick look at Sam then back to Beverly. "I'm a junior."

"Oh, just like Sam. That must be nice. Or... are you going to the same school? Harbor? I mean..."

Ryan hesitated and took a quick look at Henry and Gwen. He wasn't sure if the story that they were telling Beverly and Nathan about him included him going to Harbor or not. Because he was supposed to have been in Newport for just the last month, so he would have been at Harbor for only that amount of time, instead of being there from the start of the school year, like he really had been.

Gwen jumped in, "Yes, Ryan goes to Harbor with Sam and Angela."

Ryan looked at Beverly and Nathan, and could see that they looked a little surprised, especially Nathan. He wasn't surprised that they were surprised. Various people over the last seven-plus months since the start of the school year expressed surprise that the Cohens were paying to send him to an exclusive private school, even though he wasn't their son. He thought that maybe some people assumed that the Cohens were his foster parents rather than his legal guardians, that is, that the arrangement was much more temporary than it really was.

"So you started at a new school in the middle of the school year? That must be difficult."

"Yeah."

"Where'd you go to school before?"

"Public school. Chino Hills."

"And now you're going to a private prep school? That must be different for you."

Ryan looked down and mumbled, uncomfortable, "You have no idea."

Ryan picked up his fork and concentrated on finishing eating, hoping that the questioning was over. He was starting to get a little angry again. The question about starting at Harbor in the middle of the year reminded him of Oliver, how he had supposedly changed schools in the middle of the year. Ryan wasn't sure why he was reminded of Oliver, again. Maybe because he already had Oliver on his mind from the conversation between Henry and Nathan that Ryan had overheard earlier.

Nathan either didn't notice that Ryan didn't want to answer any more questions, or he didn't care. He picked up the questioning.

"Harbor is a tough school, hard to get into. I guess I'm a little surprised that you got in, coming from public school in Chino. Are you able to do the work? Keep up with your classes?"

When Ryan didn't answer right away, Gwen said, "Ryan's doing well. He's very smart. He got 98th percentile on his SAT1's last year."

Ryan looked up at Gwen, quite surprised. He didn't know that the Reeses knew about that sort of thing. Sandy and Kirsten must have told them, but he wasn't sure why they would. Gwen gave Ryan a reassuring smile.

Nathan continued questioning Ryan, "You're a smart kid? That's great. So you must have worked hard at your old school, right? Gotten out of it as much as you could, you know, given the circumstances?"

Ryan was really getting tired of these questions, and he didn't really want to talk about his past. His leftover anger from thinking about Oliver was starting to get redirected at Nathan. And when Ryan was angry he stopped caring about being polite and respectful. He decided, if Nathan wanted to know about his past, then why the hell not.

So Ryan looked directly at Nathan and told him, with barely concealed anger, "Not really. The school sucked. I used to cut class all the time, go out drinking and smoking, get into fights at school. I got suspended five times. I didn't study. I didn't care. What was the point? Someone like me wasn't going to go to college anyway. I was going to end up in jail like my father, or a drunk like my mother."

Nathan looked a little shocked. Ryan wasn't sure if it was because he had answered so bluntly, or because of what he said, or because of the anger in his voice. Ryan felt satisfaction either way, that he was able to shock him. Maybe that would shut him up.

"Ryan ---"

That was Henry. He put a little warning in his voice, like Sandy sometimes did when Ryan was out of line. Ryan turned to look at Henry. He was looking at Ryan with disapproval.

Ryan didn't want to deal with this right now. Ryan picked up his plate and glass and got up from the table. "Excuse me."

* * *

To Be Continued

BTW, both the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Anaheim Angels made it to the baseball playoffs in 2004. They both lost in the first round. The San Francisco Giants, the Oakland A's, and the Seattle Mariners did not make the playoffs.


	20. The End

Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to _The O.C._.

Author's Notes: This is the last chapter of this story. It has been my longest story yet. It was a challenge. A thank you to my loyal reviewers. And a thank you to my beta, Eileen.

* * *

** Chapter 20 **

Gwen watched Ryan leave the dining room. She turned towards her brother. "God, Nathan, I never knew you were so insensitive."

Gwen got up and followed Ryan out of the dining room, hoping to catch up with him and make sure he was OK. She found his dishes in the kitchen, but he wasn't there. She figured he probably had retreated to the pool house. Sandy and Kirsten had told her and Henry that Ryan did that when he was upset. Gwen looked out the french doors in the kitchen and saw Ryan standing next to the pool, with his back to her.

Gwen went outside and walked up behind Ryan. She didn't want to scare him, so as she approached, she gently said his name.

"Ryan?"

Ryan turned to look at Gwen, and she could see that he was still upset, but he didn't look really angry like he did inside. Maybe Ryan was the kind of person whose anger flared up then went away quickly.

"I'm sorry, you know, about ---" Ryan gestured in the direction of the house.

Gwen put her hand reassuringly on Ryan's arm. "No, I'm sorry, about my brother. He can be a real jerk sometimes."

"That's OK."

"No, Ryan, it isn't. When we decided to do this thing to try and teach Nathan a lesson, we didn't think about how it would affect you, bringing up your past and your family and everything. So I'm sorry we even started this. I'm sorry we upset you."

Ryan blinked a few times rapidly and looked down.

Gwen continued, "You know what, I'm thinking maybe you should go home. You don't need to be here like this. I'm going to end this thing, tell Nathan the truth. You don't need to be here for that."

When Ryan looked up at her, he looked so uncertain. Gwen couldn't help but reach out and hug him. The boy needed a hug. She was happy when he hugged her back.

After she released him, she told him, "Go on, pack your stuff. I'll have Sam drive you home."

Ryan gave her a little smile, then nodded and turned and walked into the pool house.

Gwen went back into the house. She found the whole family in the kitchen, cleaning up after brunch. Henry and Nathan were standing by the french doors, presumably they had been watching the scene in the back yard. When she saw her brother, Gwen gave him a glare. He at least had the sensitivity to look down, looking a little embarrassed. Gwen looked at Henry and gestured with her head, indicating that she wanted him to follow her out of the kitchen, so that they could talk alone. She wanted to tell him about sending Ryan home and that maybe they should call ahead to let Sandy and Kirsten know that Ryan was coming home upset.

* * *

Nathan watched Gwen and Henry leave the kitchen, and turned back towards the now empty back yard. He looked at the pool house and could see Ryan moving around in there, but couldn't tell what he was doing. Nathan had watched Gwen get upset about Ryan being upset. He had watched her talk to Ryan quietly, then hug him. It looked like she really cared about Ryan. And it looked like Ryan responded to her, too.

Nathan went back to helping clean up after brunch, while keeping an eye on the back yard for Ryan, and keeping an eye on the doorway to the livingroom for Gwen. He wanted to apologize to both Gwen and Ryan. He now saw that he was wrong. Gwen and Henry really cared about Ryan, and he did really need the home that they could provide.

After a couple minutes, Nathan saw some movement out of the corner of his eye and turned towards the back yard to see Ryan coming out of the pool house, carrying a full dufflebag and bookbag. He started to head along the pool, maybe to walk around the house to the front. Nathan panicked. Ryan was obviously leaving, running away. He quickly looked towards the livingroom, but Gwen and Henry still weren't back yet from wherever they went.

Nathan knew it was up to him to fix this. He was the one that screwed everything up. He quickly went through the french doors and went over to intercept Ryan.

* * *

Ryan saw Nathan hurry over from the kitchen. He really didn't want to deal with him, so he sped up. But Nathan came to a stop in front of him, so Ryan had to stop.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"This is your home."

"No, it isn't."

Ryan tried to walk around Nathan, but he moved to block Ryan's path again.

"Could you just let me talk to you for 30 seconds. Please."

Ryan's attention was caught by Sam, who had come out into the back yard and was now standing a little distance behind his Uncle Nathan. He was nodding at Ryan, so Ryan took a deep breath, put down his dufflebag and bookbag on the ground and turned his attention back to Nathan to listen.

"I'm sorry, Ryan. Really, I am. I didn't mean to make you feel like this isn't your home. It is."

Ryan opened his mouth and was about to tell Nathan the truth when he spotted Sam again behind Nathan. When Ryan looked over there, he saw that Gwen and Henry had also joined Sam. Sam was shaking his head at Ryan and put his finger to his mouth like _Shhh_. So Ryan didn't say anything and went back to letting Nathan talk.

"You can't leave. Gwen and Henry really care about you. And Sam and Angela and Maggie, too. Don't let me being an ass ruin your chance to have a new life, a new home here with them."

At this point, Gwen and Henry and Sam came over and joined Nathan and Ryan. Henry told them, "Let's go inside. We all need to talk."

Nathan followed Henry and Sam into the livingroom. Ryan picked up his bags and went with Gwen. Gwen told him, "You know, you don't have to be here for this, if you don't want."

Ryan gave her a little smile. "I know. I want to be." Gwen smiled back at Ryan.

When Ryan got into the livingroom, he saw that everyone was there. He put down his bags near the french doors and sat down on an available chair. Maggie came over and climbed up on his lap. He got her settled in and put his arms around her.

Henry cleared his throat and everyone looked at him. "OK, everyone, it is time to clear the air. Nathan, Beverly, we haven't been entirely truthful with you about Ryan."

Nathan looked from Henry to Ryan and back to Henry. "You've been lying to us? What about?"

"I wouldn't call it lying. Think of it more as we've been putting on a play, all of us, for your benefit." Nathan looked confused.

Henry continued, "Ryan is a friend of Sam's from school. What we told you about him and his background is pretty much the truth, but he doesn't live here with us, he lives with the Cohens. You remember, we told you about Sandy Cohen, Ryan's lawyer?"

"Yes?"

"Well, it was him and his wife Kirsten who took Ryan in, not us. And that was last summer, not last month. Actually, remember back in September when I told you that we were seriously going to pursue taking in a troubled kid, because we met one?" Nathan nodded. "Well, that was Ryan."

Nathan looked at Ryan, nodding thoughtfully. "OK. So... Why did you tell us that he lived here with you?"

Gwen answered, "To teach you a lesson."

Nathan looked at his sister, surprised.

"We didn't take Ryan in, but we could have, or someone like him. We could have a white member of this family, and we wanted you to accept that, to face some of your prejudices and overcome them. And I think you have. From what you said outside, you accepted Ryan as a member of this family. So, I think, mission accomplished."

Nathan still looked confused. He looked from Ryan to Gwen and Henry. "But -- All of that was just play-acting? But it seemed so real. It seemed like you really cared about him."

"Oh, that was real." Gwen looked over at Ryan. "We do care about Ryan. If he didn't already have a home with the Cohens, we would be happy to give him a home here with our family."

Ryan was surprised. Happy, but surprised. He didn't know that the Reeses felt that way. Ryan found a smile spreading over his face. Gwen smiled back.

"Ryan, I know I said you should go home, but now that everything is out in the open, how would you feel about staying for dinner, like we planned?"

"Um.. Sure. Sure."

"Great."

Ryan sat there, watching Gwen and Henry talk with Nathan and Beverly, and watching Sam and Angela, and holding Maggie in his lap. He thought about what Gwen said. Yeah. If he didn't already have a home with Sandy and Kirsten and Seth, he wouldn't mind living here. He wouldn't mind being the newest black diamond. He wouldn't mind at all.

* * *

**The End.**


End file.
